Energy model for synaptic channel in neuro-spike communication

Abstract

The neuro-spike communication (NSC) is inspired by electrochemical communication among biological neurons. In this paper, considering that the energy consumption has important effects on the performance of NSC system, an energy model for the synaptic channel in a point-to-point NSC system is first proposed. Then the energy efficiency which is defined as the channel capacity per unit energy consumption for one spike transmission is analyzed. The numerical results demonstrate that the main parameters including the vesicle release probability, the optimal threshold, the number of the neurotransmitters contained in one vesicle and the side length of the region in which the receptors are located have different impacts on total energy consumption and channel capacity. More importantly, the vesicle release probability is the key factor of energy efficiency. The setting of these system parameters can be used to provide guidelines for designing energy efficient NSC systems.