Threshold-varying integrate-and-fire model reproduces distributions of spontaneous blink intervals

PLoS One. 2018 Oct 30;13(10):e0206528. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206528. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Spontaneous blinking is one of the most frequent human behaviours. While attentionally guided blinking may benefit human survival, the function of spontaneous frequent blinking in cognitive processes is poorly understood. To model human spontaneous blinking, we proposed a leaky integrate-and-fire model with a variable threshold which is assumed to represent physiological fluctuations during cognitive tasks. The proposed model is capable of reproducing bimodal, normal, and widespread peak-less distributions of inter-blink intervals as well as the more common popular positively skewed distributions. For bimodal distributions, the temporal positions of the two peaks depend on the baseline and the amplitude of the fluctuating threshold function. Parameters that reproduce experimentally derived bimodal distributions suggest that relatively slow oscillations (0.11-0.25 Hz) govern blink elicitations. The results also suggest that changes in blink rates would reflect fluctuations of threshold regulated by human internal states.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Attention / physiology
  • Blinking / physiology*
  • Cognition / physiology
  • Humans
  • Models, Biological

Grants and funding

Funding was provided by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science: grant number JP15H05876 to KM (https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/en/grant/KAKENHI-PLANNED-15H05876/); grant number JP15KT0112 to TI (https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/en/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-15KT0112/); grant number JP15K04076 to RN (https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/en/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-15K04076/); grant number JP16K16138 to KF (https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/en/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-16K16138/); grant number JP17K00348 to TI (https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/en/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-17K00348/); and grant number JP18KT0076 to RN (https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/en/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-18KT0076/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.