Coherence resonance and stochastic synchronization in a small-world neural network: An interplay in the presence of spike-timing-dependent plasticity

Coherence resonance (CR), stochastic synchronization (SS), and spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) are ubiquitous dynamical processes in biological neural networks. This ubiquitousness should permit (or even condemn) these phenomena to interact with an interplay that should enable the brain to make synergistic and optimal use of these phenomena to possess such an impressive information processing capability. Whether enhancing CR can be associated with improving SS and vice versa is, thus, a fundamental question of interest. STDP and different network connectivity effects on this enhancement interplay are still elusive. This paper considers a small-world network of excitable Hodgkin-Huxley neurons driven by channel noise and STDP with an asymmetric Hebbian time window. Numerical results indicate that there exist specific intervals of parameter values of the network topology and the STDP learning rule in which CR and SS can be simultaneously enhanced. Our results imply that the inherent noise and STDP rule in neural networks can jointly play a constructive or antagonistic role in enhancing spatio-temporal coherence in neural activity.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, 70 reference