Noise-induced synchronization and coherence resonance of a Hodgkin-Huxley model of thermally sensitive neurons

We study nontrivial effects of noise on synchronization and coherence of a chaotic Hodgkin-Huxley model of thermally sensitive neurons. We demonstrate that identical neurons which are not coupled but subjected to a common fluctuating input (Gaussian noise) can achieve complete synchronization when the noise amplitude is larger than a threshold. For nonidentical neurons, noise can induce phase synchronization. Noise enhances synchronization of weakly coupled neurons. We also find that noise enhances the coherence of the spike trains. A saddle point embedded in the chaotic attractor is responsible for these nontrivial noise-induced effects. Relevance of our results to biological information processing is discussed. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.