Neurocomputing 52–54 (2003) 933–942 www.elsevier.com/locate/neucom Computational modeling of bursting pacemaker neurons in the pre-B otzinger complex N.A. Shevtsova a ; ∗ , K. Ptak b , D.R. McCrimmon b , I.A. Rybak a a School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA b Department of Physiology and Institute for Neuroscience, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL 60611-3008, USA Abstract Bursting pacemaker neurons in the pre-B otzinger complex (pBC) were modeled in the Hodgkin–Huxley style. The single neuron model included rapidly inactivating sodium, persis- tent sodium, and delayed-rectier potassium currents. The kinetics of the rapidly inactivating and persistent sodium channels was modeled using experimental data obtained from whole-cell patch clamp recordings from pBC neurons in vitro. Our computational study focused on the conditions that could provide the generation of endogenous bursting activity in single pacemaker neurons and neural populations and on the specic roles of voltage-gated potassium and persis- tent sodium currents in triggering or suppression of endogenous population oscillations in the pBC. c  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Computational modeling; Pre-B otzinger complex; Endogenous oscillations; Potassium channels; Respiratory rhythm 1. Introduction The pre-B otzinger complex (pBC) is a region in the rostroventrolateral medulla that is considered an important part of the respiratory neural network [1–4,11,12,20,25,27]. As shown in vitro, this region, under certain conditions, can generate an intrinsic rhythmic bursting activity [3,11,12,20,25,27] that is resistant to blockade of synap- tic inhibition [23]. It has been suggested, that this in vitro activity is driven by a * Corresponding author. E-mail address: natalia@cbis.ece.drexel.edu (N.A. Shevtsova). 0925-2312/03/$-see front matter c  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0925-2312(02)00841-X