Response of coupled noisy excitable systems to weak stimulation

Abstract

It is known that coupling can enhance the response of noisy bistable devices to weak periodic modulation. This work examines whether a similar phenomenon occurs in the active rotator model for excitable systems. We study the dynamics of assemblies of weakly periodically modulated active rotators. The addition of noise to these brings about a number of behaviors that have no counterpart in networks of bistable systems. The analysis of the dynamics of the solution of the Fokker-Planck equation of active rotator networks shows that these new behaviors are similar to generic responses of periodically forced autonomous oscillators. This is because noise alone, in the absence of other inputs, can regularize the dynamics of single active rotators through coherence resonance, and lead to regular synchronous activity at the level of networks. We argue that similar phenomena take place in a broad class of excitable systems.