Quantitative Analysis Linking Inner Hair Cell Voltage Changes and Postsynaptic Conductance Change: A Modelling Study

Figure 5

Spatiotemporal calcium evolution as calcium channels open. The plots show the base 10 logarithm of the intracellular calcium ion concentration as it varies with distance around the mouth of the channel and as time passes. Note that the calcium ion spread inside the hair cell depends strongly on three factors: (1) the buffering environment ((a), (b), (e), and (f) correspond to BAPTA, while (c), (d), (g), and (h) correspond to endogenous buffers) (2) the voltage across the channel ((a), (b), (c), and (d) correspond to −70 mV across the cell membrane while (e), (f), (g), and (h) correspond to −20 mV across) (3) the time the channel remains open (the channel in (a), (c), (e), and (g) stays open for 1 ms while in (b), (d), (f), and (h) it stays open for 5 ms). For the buffering chemical constants consult Table 2.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

(g)

(h)