ABSTRACT
Over the past decade there has been a bloom of optoelectronic devices whose dynamical properties exhibit key similarities with models of neuron biophysics, in particular, excitability. In Chapter 5, excitability was behaviorally defined by three main criteria: (i) an unperturbed system rests at a single stable equilibrium; (ii) an external perturbation above the excitability threshold triggers a large excursion from this equilibrium; (iii) the system then settles back to the attractor in what is called the refractory period, after which the system can be excited again [1]. These dynamical regimes involve variables with different time scales which manifest into important attributes of spike processing. The fast dynamics govern the width of the output pulse (spike); i.e., the fast variable is responsible for the firing of a pulse. This places a lower bound on the temporal resolution of information coding. The slow dynamics govern the output pulse firing rate; i.e., the slow variable determines the full recovery of the system to the quiescent state. This places an upper bound on how fast information can be processed.
