Effects of synapse location, delay and background stochastic activity on synchronising hippocampal CA1 neurons

We study the synchronisation of neurons in a realistic model under the Hodgkin–Huxley dynamics. To focus on the role of the different locations of the excitatory synapses, we use two identical neurons where the set of input signals is grouped at two different distances from the soma. The system is intended to represent a CA1 hippocampal neuron in which the synapses arriving from the CA3 neurons of the trisynaptic pathway appear to be localised in the apical dendritic region and are, in principle, either proximal or distal to the soma. Synchronisation is studied using a specifically defined spiking correlation function as a function of various parameters such as the distance from the soma of one of the synaptic groups, the inhibition weight and the associated activation delay. We found that the neurons’ spiking activity depends nonmonotonically on the relative dendritic location of the synapses and their inhibition weight, while the synchronisation measure always decreases with inhibition, and strongly depends on its activation time delay. In our model, the synaptic random subthreshold background activity substantially reduces synchronisation in a monotonic way, while highlights the importance of a balanced E/I contribution for neuronal synchronisation.