Stochastic resonance and finite resolution in a network of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons

Abstract

This paper discusses the effect of stochastic resonance in a network of leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) neurons and investigates its realisation on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). We report in this study that stochastic resonance which is mainly associated with floating point implementations is possible in both a single LIF neuron and a network of LIF neurons implemented on lower resolution integer based digital hardware. We also report that such a network can improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the output over a single LIF neuron. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2002.