title: Control of neural chaos by synaptic noise.
abstract: We study neural automata - or neurobiologically inspired cellular automata - which exhibits chaotic itinerancy among the different stored patterns or memories. This is a consequence of activity-dependent synaptic fluctuations, which continuously destabilize the attractor and induce irregular hopping to other possible attractors. The nature of these irregularities depends on the dynamic details, namely, on the intensity of the synaptic noise and the number of sites of the network, which are synchronously updated at each time step. Varying these factors, different regimes occur, ranging from regular to chaotic dynamics. As a result, and in absence of external agents, the chaotic behavior may turn regular after tuning the noise intensity. It is argued that a similar mechanism might be on the basis of self-controlling chaos in natural systems.
authors.affiliation: Institute Carlos I for Theoretical and Computational Physics, and Departamento de Electromagnetismo y Fisica de la Materia, University of Granada, E-18071 Granada, Spain. jcortes1@inf.ed.ac.uk
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Cortes
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Torres
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Marro
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*; D049490:Systems Biology