Response of Hodgkin-Huxley stochastic bursting neuron to single-pulse stimulus

We investigate Hodgkin-Huxley neuron model with external Gaussian noise in the range of parameters where it exhibits bistability of silent and firing states, and noise-induced bursts occur. We study the response of the system to brief single pulse of current. When noise amplitude increases, the delay time between the stimulus and the first spike decreases substantially even for subthreshold stimulus. The mean number of spikes in a post-stimulus burst has a maximum in a certain range of noise amplitudes. Therefore, we found that Hodgkin-Huxley neuron in the stochastic bursting regime has more improved sensitivity to single-pulse stimulus than in the silent one.