Bursting and spiking due to additional direct and stochastic currents in neuron models

Neurons at rest can exhibit diverse firing activities patterns in response to various external deterministic and random stimuli, especially additional currents. In this paper, neuronal firing patterns from bursting to spiking, induced by additional direct and stochastic currents, are explored in rest states corresponding to two values of the parameter V_K in the Chay neuron system. Three cases are considered by numerical simulation and fast/slow dynamic analysis, in which only the direct current or the stochastic current exists, or the direct and stochastic currents coexist. Meanwhile, several important bursting patterns in neuronal experiments, such as the period-1 "circle/homoclinic" bursting and the integer multiple "fold/homoclinic" bursting with one spike per burst, as well as the transition from integer multiple bursting to period-1 "circle/ homoclinic" bursting and that from stochastic "Hopf/homoclinic" bursting to "Hopf/homoclinic" bursting, are investigated in detail.