Silicon Neurons Research Articles

Analogue VLSI ‘integrate-and-fire’ neuronwith frequency adaptation

A silicon neuron with separated ‘integrate’ and ‘fire’ representations is presented. The neuron is simple and requires a modest number of transistors, but preserves a number of temporal characteristics of physiological neurons: temporal integration, passive conductance, after-hyperpolarisation, absolute refractory period, and frequency adaptation.

Silicon neuron simulation with SPICE: tool for neurobiology and neural networks.

The paper deals with computer simulations of 'silicon neurons', which are assemblies of CMOS circuits that generate the equivalents of the ionic currents and of the action potentials of real (biological) neurons. The circuit simulation program SPICE is used to simulate the generation of action potentials by a silicon neuron. Moreover, the equivalent circuits of silicon synapses are described and the behaviours of simple two- and three-neuron networks are analysed. Implications for the areas of neurobiology and formal neural networks are briefly considered.