Statistical methods for model discrimination. Applications to gating kinetics and permeation of the acetylcholine receptor channel

Methods are described for discrimination of models of the gating kinetics and permeation of single ionic channels. Both maximum likelihood and regression procedures are discussed. In simple situations, where models are nested, standard hypothesis tests can be used. More commonly, however, non-nested models are of interest, and several procedures are described for model discrimination in these cases, including Monte Carlo methods, which allow the comparison of models at significance levels of choice. As an illustration, the methods are applied to single-channel data from acetylcholine receptor channels.