Synchronization of Fractional Order Neurons in Presence of Noise

The firing rate of some biological neurons such as neocortical pyramidal neurons is consistent with fractional order derivative, and the fractional-order neuron models depict the firing rate of neurons more accurately than other integer order neuron models do. For this reason, first, the dynamical characteristics of fractional order Hindmarsh Rose (HR) neuron are investigated, here and then a two coupled neuronal system based on Hindmarsh Rose neuron is presented. The results show several differences in the dynamical cha.racteristics of integer order and fractional order Hindmarsh Rose neuron model. The integer order model shows only one type of firing characteristics when the parameter of the model remained the same. The fractional-order model depicts several dynamical behaviors even for the same parameters as the order of the fractional operator is varied with the same parameter values. The firing frequency increases as the order of the fractional operator decreases. The fractional-order is therefore key in determining the firing characteristics of biological neuron models. A linearized model of HR neuron is also given for hardware resource minimizations and to implement this neuronal network on a large scale. A synchronized system of two fractional-order fractional Hindmarsh-Rose (HR) neurons in the presence of noise is also presented. The dynamical characteristics of the modified coupled neuron are determined by the parameters of the neuron model and the coupling function. The robustness of the network in the presence of noise is verified by both amplitude and phase synchronization techniques. A simplification of the coupling function is also presented to reduce the hardware cost. The synchronization results show that the model can produce the desired behavior with acceptable error.