Vibrational Resonance in the Small-World Neuronal Network with Unreliable Synapses

We investigate the phenomenon of pacemaker-driven vibrational resonance (VR) in a small-world neuronal network (SWNN) with unreliable synapses. It is shown that the correlation between the pacemaker frequency and the dynamical response of the network is resonantly dependent on the amplitude of high-frequency driving, and the emergence of VR in the SWNN is largely determined by the neurotransmitter release probability and the synaptic strength of the unreliable synapses. Numerical results also show that all considered parameters play a key role in determining the ability of the SWNN with unreliable synapses to enhance the outreach of the localized subthreshold pacemaker, and only they bounded to a rather sharp interval of values warrant the emergence of the pronounced VR phenomenon.