Regensburg 2004 – scientific programme

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AKB: Biologische Physik

AKB 50: Poster Session "Biological Physics"

AKB 50.11: Poster

Friday, March 12, 2004, 10:30–13:00, B

First-Passage and Residence Times in a Periodically Driven Integrate-and-Fire Model — •Michael Schindler, Peter Talkner, and Peter Hänggi — Institut für Physik, Universität Augsburg

The stochastic integrate-and-fire model presents a simple model for the spiking behavior of neurons. In this model a neuron No-dqfiresNo-dq if an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process crosses a prescibed threshold. After the firing the process is assumed to be in a refractory state, and from there it is put back into its initial, active, state.

For short refractory times this process can be characterized by the distribution of either the first-passage times of the threshold or the residence times in the active state. We determined the distributions of these times for the integrate-and-fire model in the presence of a periodic signal. This is done by solving numerically both the respective Langevin equation and the equivalent Fokker-Planck equation. The results are compared with an approximate analytic theory. If the period of the signal is large compared to the relaxation time of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck signal and if the threshold is higher than a few times the noise strength we find theory and numerics to be in excellent agreement.