Thalamic bursts depend on the low-threshold calcium current IT. They have previously been modeled using an integrate-and-fire-or-burst (IFB) model with parameters derived from in vitro recordings in cats (Smith et al, J Neurophysol, 83:588, 2000). However, using voltage clamp recordings in the macaque thalamus we have observed steeper activation kinetics and a smaller window current (Carden et al, SFN abstr, 2003) than is found in other species. This is important because of the somewhat controversial role of thalamic bursts — although bursts are typical of spindle wave sleep, they may also appear during waking behavior, and information theoretic analyses indicate that they may transmit sensory information. Here we study the responses of an IFB model that incorporates the key kinetic parameters of native IT of the macaque, and compare this model alongside a similar one with parameters derived from our recordings in ferret under the same conditions. The results show many similarities with previous reports ba...