Creating a model of stochastic channel gating

Note: this part of the Channel Builder tutorial assumes that you are familiar with the terms and tools used in the first two parts ( Creating a channel from an HH-style specification and Creating a channel from a kinetic scheme specification).

Early versions of the Channel Builder could only handle the continuous system approximation to channel gating. More recent versions are capable of efficient simulation of stochastic channel gating, in which the gating states and net conductance make abrupt transitions between discrete levels. To do this, the Channel Builder must be configured as a point process, and gating dynamics must be specified in terms of a kinetic scheme.

It is most convenient to start from a Channel Builder implementation of deterministic gating. For this example, our starting point will be the three state kinetic model of a potassium channel that we built in Creating a channel from a kinetic scheme specification.

Step 1. Clone a Channel Builder, specified in terms of a kinetic scheme, to a new Channel Builder "as a Point Process".

Step 2. Test the model of stochastic gating. This involves more work than Step 1, but it is just as important.


Go back to the main page ("Using the Channel Builder") to work on a different tutorial.


Copyright © 2006 by N.T. Carnevale and M.L. Hines, All Rights Reserved.