Modeling of inter-neuronal coupling medium and its impact on neuronal synchronization

PLoS One. 2017 May 9;12(5):e0176986. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176986. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

In this paper, modeling of the coupling medium between two neurons, the effects of the model parameters on the synchronization of those neurons, and compensation of coupling strength deficiency in synchronization are studied. Our study exploits the inter-neuronal coupling medium and investigates its intrinsic properties in order to get insight into neuronal-information transmittance and, there from, brain-information processing. A novel electrical model of the coupling medium that represents a well-known RLC circuit attributable to the coupling medium's intrinsic resistive, inductive, and capacitive properties is derived. Surprisingly, the integration of such properties reveals the existence of a natural three-term control strategy, referred to in the literature as the proportional integral derivative (PID) controller, which can be responsible for synchronization between two neurons. Consequently, brain-information processing can rely on a large number of PID controllers based on the coupling medium properties responsible for the coherent behavior of neurons in a neural network. Herein, the effects of the coupling model (or natural PID controller) parameters are studied and, further, a supervisory mechanism is proposed that follows a learning and adaptation policy based on the particle swarm optimization algorithm for compensation of the coupling strength deficiency.

MeSH terms

  • Models, Neurological*
  • Neurons / physiology*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan (to MR) and the National Research Foundation of Korea under the auspices of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Korea (grant no. NRF-2014-R1A2A1A10049727 to KSH). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.