Realization of spiking by an excitable chemical system

Abstract

It is theoretically demonstrated that an excitable chemical system can function as a spiking neuron and a chemical spiking neuron network can be constructed. The Oregonator is used as a model for a chemical spiking neuron. The chemical spiking neuron modeled by the Oregonator is similar in behavior to the spiking neuron model of Maass even though the Oregonator has a different excitation mechanism from the spiking neuron model. In the spiking neuron network, information is encoded and processed by using the timing of the spikes in spiking neurons. It is shown that chemical spiking neuron networks can be constructed by the unidirectional selective coupling of the spiking chemical neurons. The chemical spiking neuron network can process information encoded temporally like the spiking neuron network with a restriction in the range of the weight of couplings between the chemical neurons.