Simple Cortical and Thalamic Neuron Models for Digital Arithmetic Circuit Implementation

Trade-off between reproducibility of neuronal activities and computational efficiency is one of crucial subjects in computational neuroscience and neuromorphic engineering. A wide variety of neuronal models have been studied from different viewpoints. The digital spiking silicon neuron (DSSN) model is a qualitative model that focuses on efficient implementation by digital arithmetic circuits. We expanded the DSSN model and found appropriate parameter sets with which it reproduces the dynamical behaviors of the ionic-conductance models of four classes of cortical and thalamic neurons. We first developed a 4-variable model by reducing the number of variables in the ionic-conductance models and elucidated its mathematical structures using bifurcation analysis. Then, expanded DSSN models were constructed that reproduce these mathematical structures and capture the characteristic behavior of each neuron class. We confirmed that statistics of the neuronal spike sequences are similar in the DSSN and the ionic-conductance models. Computational cost of the DSSN model is larger than that of the recent sophisticated Integrate-and-Fire-based models, but smaller than the ionic-conductance models. This model is intended to provide another meeting point for above trade-off that satisfies the demand for large-scale neuronal network simulation with closer-to-biology models.