Abstract
We study nontrivial effects of noise on synchronization and coherence of a chaotic Hodgkin-Huxley model of thermally sensitive neurons. We demonstrate that identical neurons which are not coupled but subjected to a common fluctuating input (Gaussian noise) can achieve complete synchronization when the noise amplitude is larger than a threshold. For nonidentical neurons, noise can induce phase synchronization. Noise enhances synchronization of weakly coupled neurons. We also find that noise enhances the coherence of the spike trains. A saddle point embedded in the chaotic attractor is responsible for these nontrivial noise-induced effects. Relevance of our results to biological information processing is discussed.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 401-409 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Chaos |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2003 |