Regulating firing rates in a neural circuit by activating memristive synapse with magnetic coupling

Abstract

The change of firing rates depends on how synaptic features interact with intrinsic properties of cells in neural system. Considering the chemical synaptic features, we design a controllable memristive synapse with magnetic coupling that are voltage-controlled, nonlinear, and unidirectional. To explore the effect of firing rates on interactions between synapse and neuron, the memristive synaptic current involving excitation and inhibition is then mapped into a generalized neuronal model. We observe and characterize the appearance of counterintuitive behavior that increased excitatory memristive synaptic current leads to the decrease in firing rates, and increased inhibitory memristive synaptic current leads to the increase in firing rates in the neural circuit. For the counterintuitive phenomenon, we utilize a geometric dynamics method to provide an underlying dynamics mechanism how the excitatory or inhibitory current impacts the decrease or increase in firing rates.