Friday Oct. 8

Priscilla  Greenwood, Department of Mathematics and Statistics,
Arizona State University

The Influence of Noise on Neuronal and Other Bio-dynamical Systems

There are several well established but still surprising facilitory
effects of noise on nonlinear bio-systems, seen in both data and in
models.  The addition of noise can make output more closely resemble a
periodic input both in frequency and in phase.  Noise can decrease the
delay in response of a system to transition of a parameter across a
critical point.  Noise can trigger synchronized  neuronal bursting
patterns in uncoupled neurons firing at different frequencies (recent
work of A. Neiman et. al.). I will talk about heuristic and mathematical
approaches to the understanding of some of these "paradoxical"
phenomena, with reference to work of Baer, Kuske, M. Ward, and others.