Transient termination of synaptically sustained spiking by stochastic inputs in a pair of coupled Type 1 neurons

摘要

We examine the effects of stochastic input currents on the firing behavior oftwo excitable neurons coupled with fast excitatory synapses. In such cells(models), typified by the quadratic integrate and fire model, mutual synapticcoupling can cause sustained firing or oscillatory behavior which isnecessarily antiphase. Additive Gaussian white noise can transiently terminatethe oscillations, hence destroying the stable limit cycle. Further applicationof the noise may return the system to spiking activity. In a particular noiserange, the transition times between the oscillating and the resting state arestrongly asymmetric. We numerically investigate an approximate basin ofattraction, A, of the periodic orbit and use Markov process theory to explainthe firing behavior in terms of the probability of escape of trajectories fromA