Abstract
In recent experiments, inhomogeneities in the somatic membrane potential of a firing neuron have been observed by Gogan et al. Ion channel interactions result in collective behavior which might lead to spontaneous symmetry breaking. The simulations presented in this paper show that, with a uniform distribution of ion channels, such spontaneous symmetry breaking is not to be expected. On the other hand, a nonuniform distribution of ion channels effectively leads to a nonuniform membrane potential distribution. The inhomogeneities therefore must reflect inhomogeneities in the spatial distribution of ion channels.