The FPGA-Based Realization of the Electromagnetic Effect Defined FitzHugh-Nagumo Neuron Model

Abstract

The electrical transmission, which occurs on the surface of the neuron membranes, is based on the flow of charges such as calcium, potassium and sodium. This potential change means a current flow and if there is a variable current flow, a flux change comes into question. Accordingly, recent studies have suggested that these electrophysiological neuronal activities can induce a time-varying electromagnetic field distribution. The electric field is usually defined as an external stimulation variable of the biological neuron models in literature. However, the electric field is included in the biological neuron models as a new state variable in another perspective and it is described the polarization modultion of media. Here, this study focused on that the electric field is a state variable in the biological neuron model. The numerical simulations of the FitzHugh-Nagumo neuron, which is improved by including the electromagnetic effect, are re-executed in this study. Then, the hardware realization of this system is built on the FPGA device. Therefore, it is shown that it is also possible to perform the hardware realizations of the neuronal systems, which have a new state variable for the electric field definition.