title: Synchronized firing of FitzHugh-Nagumo neurons by noise.
abstract: We investigate the influence of noise on synchronization between the spiking activities of neurons with external impulsive forces. We first analyze the dependence of the synchronized firing on the amplitude and the angular frequency of the impulsive force in the noise-free system. Three cases (regular spiking, traveling wave, and chaotic spiking) with low synchronized firing are chosen to study effects due to noise. In each case we find that small noise can be a promoter of synchronization phenomena in neural activities, by choosing an appropriate noise intensity acting on some of the neurons.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Engineering, Kagawa University, 2217-20 Hayashi, Takamatsu, Kagawa 761-0396, Japan. kitaji@eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kitajima
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kurths
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials; D000818:Animals; D001703:Biophysics / Q000379:methods*; D019277:Entropy; D008959:Models, Neurological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009415:Nerve Net; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D016011:Normal Distribution; D009435:Synaptic Transmission; D013997:Time Factors