Physiologically realistic modelling of a mechanism for neural representation of intervals of time.

A model for a recurrent network of bistable spiking neurons is examined. Each neuron is described by a leaky-integrate-and-fire formulation with biophysically realistic currents and noise. Specially, neuronal bistability is equipped by after-depolarisation current. Results obtained by computer simulation show that spiking of each neuron starting at an initial time continues for an extended period and then suddenly ceases at around a certain time. We hypothesise that activation of neurons that starts at t = 0 and voluntarily ceases at t = T is a neural underpinning of internal representation of an interval of time T. The above results theoretically support this hypothesis by demonstrating one possible mechanism to generate such time course of neuronal activation.