A digital neurmorphic circuit for a simplified model of astrocyte dynamics

Abstract

Recent neurophysiologic findings have shown that astrocytes (the most abundant type of glial cells) are active partners in neural information processing and regulate the synaptic transmission dynamically. Motivated by these findings, in the present research, a digital neuromorphic circuit to implement the astrocyte dynamics is developed. To model the dynamics of the intracellular Ca(2+) waves produced by astrocytes, we utilize a simplified model which considers the main physiological pathways of neuron-astrocyte interactions. Next, a digital circuit for the astrocyte dynamic is proposed which is simulated using ModelSim and finally, it is implemented in hardware on the ZedBoard. The results of hardware synthesis, FPGA implementations are in agreement with MATLAB and ModelSim simulations and confirm that the proposed digital astrocyte is suitable for applications in reconfigurable neuromorphic devices which implement biologically brain circuits.

Keywords: Astrocyte; Digital circuit; FPGA; Neuromorphic; Tripartite synapse.