Enhanced Response to Subthreshold Signals by Phase Noise in a Hodgkin—Huxley Neuron

Noise has heen revealed as an important cue for understanding the extraordinary ability of sensory neurons to detect or amplify external weak signals. We demonstrate that phase noise originating from the time-varying signal phase can enable an excitable neuron to excite spikes upon a periodic signal...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chinese physics letters 2013-01, Vol.30 (1), p.018701-1-018701-4
Main Authors: KANG, Xiao-Sha, LIANG, Xiao-Ming, LU, Hua-Ping
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amplification
Amplitudes
Evolution
Excitation
Neurons
Noise
Optimization
Spikes
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Summary:Noise has heen revealed as an important cue for understanding the extraordinary ability of sensory neurons to detect or amplify external weak signals. We demonstrate that phase noise originating from the time-varying signal phase can enable an excitable neuron to excite spikes upon a periodic signal even though the signal amplitude is subthreshold. In addition, we find that there exists an optimal value on the phase noise at which the neuron's response to the subthreshold periodic signal can be significantly improved, resulting in a resonance-like behavior. Since phase noise makes the external signal aperiodic, our findings show that sensory neurons might evolve with a better performance on detecting aperiodic signals than periodic signals.
ISSN:0256-307X
1741-3540
DOI:10.1088/0256-307X/30/1/018701