Ion channel gating dynamics

The propagation of action potentials is considered the most important type of neuronal signaling. Generation of action potentials and their transmission through the axon are governed by currents through ion channels on the neuronal membrane. Hodgkin and Huxley first described the nerve membrane ion currents deterministically and established what is now called the Hodgkin–Huxley (HH) mode. Stochasticity in ion channel gating is the major source of intrinsic neuronal noise, which can induce many important effects in neuronal dynamics. Several numerical implementations of the Langevin approach have been proposed to approximate the Markovian dynamics of the Hodgkin-Huxley neuronal model.