Stochastic multi-resonance induced by partial time delay in a Watts-Strogatz small-world neuronal network

Abstract

In a neuronal system, propagation speed of neuronal information is mainly determined by the length, the diameter, and the kind of the axons between the neurons. Thus, some communications between neurons are not instantaneous, and others are instantaneous or with some negligible delay. In the past years, effects of time delay on neuronal dynamics, such as synchronization, stochastic resonance, firing regularity, etc., have been investigated. For stochastic resonance, it has been reported recently that stochastic multi-resonance in a neuronal system can be induced by time delay. However, in these studies, time delay has been introduced to every connection of the neuronal system. As mentioned in the beginning, in a real neuronal system, communication between some neurons can be instantaneous or with some negligible delays. Thus, considering the effect of partial time delay (time delay is called as partial time delay if only part of connections are delayed) on neuronal dynamics could be more meaningful.In this paper, we focus on discussing effect of partial time delay on response amplitude of a Watts-Strogatz neuronal network which is locally modeled by Rulkov map. With the numerically obtained results, we can see that partial time delay can induce a stochastic multi-resonance which is indicated by the multi-peak characteristics in the variation of response amplitude with partial time delay. Namely, partial time delay could also induce stochastic multi-resonance in a neuronal system. Moreover, we also find that optimal response amplitude can be reached in much wider range of the partial time delay value when delayed connections are less (i.e., the partial time delay probability is small). This is different from the case in which all connections are delayed, where response amplitude become optimal only when time delay is nearly the multiples of external signal's period. But the range of the partial time delay value becomes narrower and narrower with the increasing of the partial time delay probability and when the partial time delay probability is large enough, response amplitude becomes optimal only when time delay is nearly the multiples of external signal period. It is similar to the case where all connections are delayed. Furthermore, effects of random rewiring probability and total link number in the neuronal network on partial time delay induced stochastic multi-resonance are also studied. It is found that partial time delay induced stochastic multi-resonance is robust to random rewiring probability but not robust to total link number. Stochastic resonance is a very important nonlinear phenomenon in neuroscience, thus, our obtained results could have some implications in this field.