Minimal nonlinear dynamic neuron models of the generic bifurcation type may provide the middle way between the detailed models favored by experimentalists and the simplified threshold and rate model of computational neuroscientists. This thesis investigates to which extent generic bifurcation type models grasp the essential dynamical features that may turn out play a role in cooperative neural ...

The existence of a random attractor for the stochastic FitzHugh-Nagumo system defined on an unbounded domain is established. The pullback asymptotic compactness of the stochastic system is proved by uniform estimates on solutions for large space and time variables. These estimates are obtained by a cut-off technique.

Using the standard van der Pol–FitzHugh–Nagumo excitable medium model, I demonstrate a generic mechanism, diversity, that provokes the emergence of global oscillations from individually quiescent elements in heterogeneous excitable media. This mechanism may be operating in the mammalian pancreas, where excitable b cells, quiescent when isolated, are found to oscillate when coupled, despite the ...

A method is presented for system identification of spatially extended systems with structural inhomogeneities of local dynamics and additional long-range links. The proposed identification procedure is based on steady-state stabilization and is illustrated with an inhomogeneous two-dimensional grid of coupled FitzHugh-Nagumo models.

We consider a stochastic perturbation of a FitzHugh-Nagumo system. We show that it is possible to generate oscillations for values of parameters which do not allow oscillations for the deterministic system. We also study the appearance of a new equilibrium point and new bifurcation parameters due to the noisy component.