Spiking activity of isolated and coupled Hodgkin-Huxley neurons in a noisy environment

Abstract

We examine the dynamics of isolated and network-confined Hodgkin-Huxley neurons in a noisy environment. We first demonstrate variations in the spiking activity pattern of isolated neurons when influenced by an external noise. We show that noise, even without external excitation, enables a neuron to reach maximal firing rate at an optimal strength. This noise-induced improvement in activity is also observed in the collective response of interconnected neurons forming an N×N lattice. We show that maximum synchronization is reached at a noise strength smaller than for single neurons suggesting the positive effect of network confinement.