Delay-induced stochastic bursting in excitable noisy systems

Abstract

We show that a cumulative action of noise and delayed feedback on an excitable theta-neuron leads to rather coherent stochastic bursting. An idealized point process, valid if the characteristic time scales in the problem are well-separated, is used to describe statistical properties such as the power spectrum and the interspike interval distribution. We show how the main parameters of the point process, the spontaneous excitation rate and the probability to induce a spike during the delay action, can be calculated from the solutions of a stationary and a forced Fokker-Planck equation.