An integrate-and-fire based baroreceptor model

This paper introduces a new baroreceptor model to simulate its pressure-response. The model consists of two functional parts, representing the mechanoelectrical transduction from pressure to depolarizing current, and the discharge of baroreceptor nerve endings. Different from previous baroreceptor models, special emphasis is put on the regulation of pressure-response from the electrophysiology property of baroreceptor nerve endings, which is described by an integrate-and-fire (IF) model. The physiological phenomena of firing thresholding and refractory time are involved in IF model to simulate the thresholding and saturation features of baroreceptor pressure-response. Extensive simulations have been conducted to verify the performance of the proposed model. The simulation results can reproduce most of the pressure-response curves of baroreceptor, which indicates the validity of the proposed model. Therefore, this baroreceptor model could provide further understanding on baroreceptor working mechanism, and may have future application potential for the development of artificial baroreceptor