Impact of NeuronalHeterogeneity on Correlated Colored Noise-Induced Synchronization

• Main Authors: Pengcheng eZhou, Shawn eBurton, Nathan eUrban, G Bard Ermentrout
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-08-01
• Series: Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience
• Subjects: oscillations; Correlation; phase resetting curve; Mitral cells; stochastic synchronization
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fncom.2013.00113/full

Synchronization plays an important role in neural signal processingand transmission. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain theorigin of neural synchronization. In recent years, correlatednoise-induced synchronization has received support from manytheoretical and experimental studies. However, many of these priorstudies have assumed that neurons have identical biophysicalproperties and that their inputs are well modeled by white noise. Inthis context, we use colored noise to induce synchronization betweenoscillators with heterogeneity in both phase-response curves andfrequencies. INS{In the low noise limit,} we derive novel analyticaltheory showing that the time constant of colored noise influencescorrelated noise-induced synchronization and that oscillatorheterogeneity can limit synchronization. Surprisingly, however,heterogeneous oscillators may synchronize better than homogeneousoscillators given low input correlations. We also find resonance ofoscillator synchronization to colored noise inputs when firingfrequencies diverge. INS{Collectively, these results prove robust forboth relatively high noise regimes and when applied to biophysicallyrealistic spiking neuron models, and further match experimentalrecordings from acute brain slices.