EXTERNAL NON-GAUSSIAN NOISE-ENHANCED COLLECTIVE INTRINSIC SPIKING COHERENCE IN AN ARRAY OF STOCHASTIC HODGKIN–HUXLEY NEURONS

In this Letter, we study the effect of the interaction of external non-Gaussian noise and channel noise on the temporal coherence of the collective intrinsic spiking of an array of bi-directionally coupled stochastic Hodgkin–Huxley (HH) neurons, mainly investigating how the non-Gaussian noise's deviation q from Gaussian distribution affects the spiking coherence and coherence resonance (CR) induced by channel noise and neuron number. It is found that the spiking coherence for small channel noise and the CR induced by channel noise or by neuron number change with the variation of q. As q is increased, the spiking with smaller channel noise becomes more ordered in time, and the CR by channel noise moves to bigger patch sizes. Furthermore, there is CR phenomenon when neuron number is varied, and the CR can occur in smaller channel noise when q is increased. These results show that appropriate external non-Gaussian noise can enhance and optimize the temporal coherence of the collective spiking of the coupled neurons when channel noise is sufficiently small, and can help the collective spiking with smaller channel noise reach the most ordered performance at an optimal neuron number. The mechanism underlying the phenomena is briefly discussed in terms of the property of the non-Gaussian noise. These findings could help to better understand the joint roles of external non-Gaussian noise and channel noise in the collective spiking activity of an array of coupled stochastic neurons.