Synchrony state generation in artificial neural networks with stochastic synapses

Abstract

In this study, the generation of temporal synchrony within an artificial neural network is examined considering a stochastic synaptic model. A network is introduced and driven by Poisson distributed trains of spikes along with white-Gaussian noise that is added to the internal synaptic activity representing the background activity (neuronal noise). A Hebbian-based learning rule for the update of synaptic parameters is introduced. Only arbitrarily selected synapses are allowed to learn, i.e. change parameter values. The average of the cross-correlation coefficients between a smoothed version of the responses of all the neurons is taken as an indicator for synchrony. Results show that a network using such a framework is able to achieve different states of synchrony via learning. Thus, the plausibility of using stochastic-based models in modeling the neural process is supported. It is also consistent with arguments claiming that synchrony is a part of the memory-recall process and copes with the accepted framework in biological neural systems. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.