Vibrational Resonance in Type-I Neurons

In this study, vibrational resonance is discussed in the neural system with type-1 excitability. Vibrational resonance is defined as the nonlinear response of an oscillator system to a low frequency subthreshold weak signal with the help of a high frequency signal. Here, at an intermediate amplitude level of the high-frequency signal, the frequency of the oscillations is locked to the weak signal frequency, or the oscillation-signal coherence becomes maximum. In our work, we used Morris-Lecar neuron model as type-I excitable system and global network structure for connectivitiy. As a result of the simulations, it has been seen that in globally connected neural network, signal detection performance can increase more than three times compared to the performance of a single neuron. Different scenarios in synaptic conductivity and the application of high frequency signal are considered. Accordingly, these two parameters play a very active role in the detection and especially the propagation of weak signal or information in the network by means of information encoding of the neuron population based on vibrational resonance.