Neural signal transduction aided by noise in multisynaptic excitatory and inhibitory pathways with saturation

Abstract

We study the stochastic resonance phenomenon in saturating dynamical models of neural signal transduction, at the synaptic stage, wherein the noise in multipathways enhances the processing of neuronal information integrated by excitatory and inhibitory synaptic currents. For an excitatory synaptic pathway, the additive intervention of an inhibitory pathway reduces the stochastic resonance effect. However, as the number of synaptic pathways increases, the signal transduction is greatly improved for parallel multipathways that feature both excitation and inhibition. The obtained results lead us to the realization that the collective property of inhibitory synapses assists neural signal transmission, and a parallel array of neurons can enhance their responses to multiple synaptic currents by adjusting the contributions of excitatory and inhibitory currents. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.