A Synchronization-Capturing Multiscale Solver to the Noisy Integrate-and-Fire Neuron Networks

Abstract

Multiscale Modeling &Simulation, Volume 22, Issue 1, Page 561-587, March 2024.
Abstract. The noisy leaky integrate-and-fire (NLIF) model describes the voltage configurations of neuron networks with an interacting many-particles system at a microscopic level. When simulating neuron networks of large sizes, computing a coarse-grained mean-field Fokker–Planck equation solving the voltage densities of the networks at a macroscopic level practically serves as a feasible alternative in its high efficiency and credible accuracy when the interaction within the network remains relatively low. However, the macroscopic model fails to yield valid results of the networks when simulating considerably synchronous networks with active firing events. In this paper, we propose a multiscale solver for the NLIF networks, inheriting the macroscopic solver’s low cost and the microscopic solver’s high reliability. For each temporal step, the multiscale solver uses the macroscopic solver when the firing rate of the simulated network is low, while it switches to the microscopic solver when the firing rate tends to blow up. Moreover, the macroscopic and microscopic solvers are integrated with a high-precision switching algorithm to ensure the accuracy of the multiscale solver. The validity of the multiscale solver is analyzed from two perspectives: first, we provide practically sufficient conditions that guarantee the mean-field approximation of the macroscopic model and present rigorous numerical analysis on simulation errors when coupling the two solvers; second, the numerical performance of the multiscale solver is validated through simulating several large neuron networks, including networks with either instantaneous or periodic input currents which prompt active firing events over some time.