Mathematical-model-based design of silicon burst neurons

Conventionally, silicon neurons have been designed based on two major principles, namely phenomenological and conductance-based principles. In previous studies [T. Kohno, K. Aihara, Parameter tuning of a MOSFET-based nerve membrane, in: Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics 2005, 2005, pp. 91–94; T. Kohno, K. Aihara, A MOSFET-based model of a Class 2 Nerve membrane, IEEE Trans. Neural Networks 16 (3) (2005) 754–773; T. Kohno, K. Aihara, Bottom-up design of Class 2 silicon nerve membrane, J. Intell. Fuzzy Syst., in press], we proposed a mathematical-model-based design principle that is based on phase plane and bifurcation analyses. It reproduces the mathematical structures of biological neuron models, thus making the silicon neurons simple and biologically realistic. In this study, we demonstrate that square-wave and another type of silicon bursters can be constructed by adding simple circuitries and tuning the system parameters for the silicon nerve membrane designed in our previous studies. Our simple square-wave burster exhibits various firing patterns, including chaotic spiking and bursting.