Effects of noise on leaky integrate-and-fire neuron models for neuromorphic computing applications

TL;DR

This paper investigates how additive and multiplicative noise, along with random refractory periods, affect the behavior of leaky integrate-and-fire neuron models used in neuromorphic computing, revealing significant impacts on spike train irregularity.

Contribution

It provides a detailed stochastic analysis of noise effects on LIF neuron models with refractory periods, advancing understanding of neural variability in neuromorphic systems.

Findings

Noise influences membrane potential dynamics and spike timing.

Random refractory periods increase spike train irregularity.

Numerical simulations illustrate noise impact on neuron firing patterns.

Abstract

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been extensively used for the description of problems arising from biological systems and for constructing neuromorphic computing models. The third generation of ANNs, namely, spiking neural networks (SNNs), inspired by biological neurons enable a more realistic mimicry of the human brain. A large class of the problems from these domains is characterized by the necessity to deal with the combination of neurons, spikes and synapses via integrate-and-fire neuron models. Motivated by important applications of the integrate-and-fire of neurons in neuromorphic computing for bio-medical studies, the main focus of the present work is on the analysis of the effects of additive and multiplicative types of random input currents together with a random refractory period on a leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) synaptic conductance neuron model. Our analysis is carried out via Langevin stochastic dynamics in a numerical setting describing a cell membrane potential. We provide the details of the model, as well as representative numerical examples, and discuss the effects of noise on the time evolution of the membrane potential as well as the spiking activities of neurons in the LIF synaptic conductance model scrutinized here. Furthermore, our numerical results demonstrate that the presence of a random refractory period in the LIF synaptic conductance system may substantially influence an increased irregularity of spike trains of the output neuron.