Spatio-temporal plasticity in coupled stochastic relaxation-type oscillators

Abstract

The functioning of the human brain is still not completely understood but key features such as brain oscillations on a macroscopic level and stochastic spiking together with structural plasticity on a microscopic level stand out. As its energy efficiency in cognitive tasks, e. g. pattern recognition, is still unmatched in artificial systems, neuromorphic engineering tries to mimic its functioning by incorporating different aspects into systems. While stochastic spiking has been mimicked in different oscillator types, it has not been combined with self-organized growth of the coupling structure. In this paper, we present a stochastic relaxation-type oscillator with gamma distributed firing. By coupling three oscillators over an electrolyte, we induce self-organized filament growth that influences the synchrony behavior. In this way, we are able to incorporate stochastic spiking, structural plasticity and synchrony as important features of the brain into an artificial system.