Multimodal transition and stochastic antiresonance in squid giant axons

The experimental data of N. Takahashi, Y. Hanyu, T. Musha, R. Kubo, and G. Matsumoto, Physica D \textbf{43}, 318 (1990), on the response of squid giant axons stimulated by periodic sequence of short current pulses is interpreted within the Hodgkin-Huxley model. The minimum of the firing rate as a function of the stimulus amplitude $I_0$ in the high-frequency regime is due to the multimodal transition. Below this singular point only odd multiples of the driving period remain and the system is highly sensitive to noise. The coefficient of variation has a maximum and the firing rate has a minimum as a function of the noise intensity which is an indication of the stochastic coherence antiresonance. The model calculations reproduce the frequency of occurrence of the most common modes in the vicinity of the transition. A linear relation of output frequency vs. $I_0$ for above the transition is also confirmed.Comment: 5 pages, 9 figure

On Magnetic Impurities in Gapless Fermi Systems

In ordinary metals, antiferromagnetic exchange between conduction electrons and a magnetic impurity leads to screening of the impurity spin below the Kondo temperature, $T_K$. In systems such as semimetals, small-gap semiconductors and unconventional superconductors, a reduction in available conduction states near the chemical potential can greatly depress $T_K$. The behavior of an Anderson impurity in a model with a power-law density of states, $N(\epsilon) \sim |\epsilon|^r$, $r>0$, for $|\epsilon| < \Delta$, where $\Delta \ll D$, is studied using the non-crossing approximation. The transition from the Kondo singlet to the magnetic ground state can be seen in the behavior of the impurity magnetic susceptibility $\chi$. The product $T\chi$ saturates at a finite value at low temperature for coupling smaller than the critical one. For sufficiently large coupling $T\chi \to 0$, as $T \to 0$, indicating complete screening of the impurity spin.Comment: 4 pages + 2 postscript figures, uses RevTeX, psfig.sty, submitted to the European Conference "Physics of Magnetism", Poznan, June 199

Activation of TLR3 in keratinocytes increases expression of genes involved in formation of the epidermis, lipid accumulation, and epidermal organelles.

Injury to the skin, and the subsequent release of noncoding double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) from necrotic keratinocytes, has been identified as an endogenous activator of Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3). As changes in keratinocyte growth and differentiation follow injury, we hypothesized that TLR3 might trigger some elements of the barrier repair program in keratinocytes. dsRNA was observed to induce TLR3-dependent increases in human keratinocyte mRNA abundance for ABCA12 (ATP-binding cassette, sub-family A, member 12), glucocerebrosidase, acid sphingomyelinase, and transglutaminase 1. Additionally, treatment with dsRNA resulted in increases in sphingomyelin and morphologic changes including increased epidermal lipid staining by Oil Red O and TLR3-dependent increases in lamellar bodies and keratohyalin granules. These observations show that dsRNA can stimulate some events in keratinocytes that are important for skin barrier repair and maintenance

Multimodal transition and excitability of a neural oscillator

We analyze the response of the Morris-Lecar model to a periodic train of short current pulses in the period-amplitude plane. For a wide parameter range encompassing both class 2 and class 3 behavior in Hodgkin's classification there is a multimodal transition between the set of odd modes and the set of all modes. It is located between the 2:1 and 3:1 locked-in regions. It is the same dynamic instability as the one discovered earlier in the Hodgkin-Huxley model and observed experimentally in squid giant axons. It appears simultaneously with the bistability of the states 2:1 and 3:1 in the perithreshold regime. These results imply that the multimodal transition may be a universal property of resonant neurons