Simulation of In Vitro-Like Electrical Activities in Urinary Bladder Smooth Muscle Cells

Abstract

Urinary bladder smooth muscle (UBSM) generates spontaneous electrical activities due to stochastic nature of purinergic neurotransmitter release from the parasympathetic nerve. The stochastic nature of the purinergic neurotransmitter release was represented by a simplified ‘point-conductance’ model to mimic in vitro-like electrical activities in UBSM cell. The point-conductance was represented by the independent synaptic conductance described by the stochastic random-walk processes and injected into a single-compartment model of mouse UBSM cell. This model successfully evoked irregular spontaneous depolarizations (SDs) and spontaneous action potential (sAP) as the properties of in vitro-like electrical activities in UBSM cells. The model mimics the T- and L-type Ca2+ ion channel blocker by setting their respective conductance to zero. We also found that the point-conductance model modulates the sAP properties by adding background activity.