Weak signal detection capacity of type-II Morris–Lecar neuron system under presynaptic bombardments

Abstract

The information encoding mechanism of the neuronal system is quite complex and is sensitive to environmental conditions. Neuronal noise, especially synaptic random inputs, is a natural part of the brain. Theoretical and experimental studies have revealed that noise plays a vital role in signal frequency selectivity and weak sensory input perception of the neuronal system. There is a consensus that sufficiently intense noise can trigger rhythmic brain activity, and these noise-induced oscillations could improve signal processing of the neuronal system, particularly when the external signal frequency aligns with the frequency of the noise-induced rhythm. Such behavior in response to noise in the signal-processing mechanism of biological systems is elucidated by stochastic resonance. In this regard, this paper systematically analyzes the stochastic resonance in a Type-II Morris–Lecar neuron under excitatory and inhibitory background spike bombardments. Our results indicate that Morris–Lecar Type II neurons enhance their signal coding capacity by exploiting background synaptic activity. In addition, it has been revealed that the biological properties of the background synaptic connections of neurons that oscillate at different frequencies, such as delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma bands, are different. On the other hand, it has been found that neurons adapt to the properties of pre-synaptic neurons to encode weak signals. This study ensures novel insights into the functional role of background synaptic input in neuronal coding mechanisms by demonstrating a biophysical factor of stochastic resonance via numerical analyses. Furthermore, our results show that the properties of the background synaptic inputs significantly determine what kind of signal to encode or not. These results are an important indicator of the signal frequency selectivity of neurons, such as auditory cells.