title: A digital neurmorphic circuit for a simplified model of astrocyte dynamics.
abstract: Recent neurophysiologic findings have shown that astrocytes (the most abundant type of glial cells) are active partners in neural information processing and regulate the synaptic transmission dynamically. Motivated by these findings, in the present research, a digital neuromorphic circuit to implement the astrocyte dynamics is developed. To model the dynamics of the intracellular Ca(2+) waves produced by astrocytes, we utilize a simplified model which considers the main physiological pathways of neuron-astrocyte interactions. Next, a digital circuit for the astrocyte dynamic is proposed which is simulated using ModelSim and finally, it is implemented in hardware on the ZedBoard. The results of hardware synthesis, FPGA implementations are in agreement with MATLAB and ModelSim simulations and confirm that the proposed digital astrocyte is suitable for applications in reconfigurable neuromorphic devices which implement biologically brain circuits.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Soheila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nazari
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Karim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Faez
authors.affiliation: Medical Biology Research Center, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran.
authors.forename: Ehsan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Karami
authors.affiliation: Medical Biology Research Center, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran. Electronic address: ma.amiri@ece.ut.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Mahmood
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Amiri
mesh_terms: D001253:Astrocytes / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D002118:Calcium / Q000378:metabolism; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D002118:Calcium
keywords: Astrocyte; Digital circuit; FPGA; Neuromorphic; Tripartite synapse