Bifurcations to bursting oscillations in memristor-based FitzHugh-Nagumo circuit

To characterize neuronal firing activities and elucidate its bifurcation mechanisms, a memristor-based FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) circuit is designed based on the FHN circuit architecture combined with a first-order memristive simulator, and its normalized system with periodic and quasi-periodic bursting oscillations is established. With the change of externally applied excitation, the memristor-based FHN system has the time-varying equilibrium point where the number, position and stability evolve slowly over time. In an evolution period of the time-domain waveform, different fold and/or Hopf bifurcations are triggered, resulting in periodic or quasi-periodic bursting oscillations. To explain the intrinsic bifurcation mechanisms, the fold and Hopf bifurcation sets are built and the transitions between the resting and spiking states are demonstrated, thus identifying the Hopf/fold and Hopf/Hopf bursting oscillations. Finally, based on the circuit simulation model, analog circuit simulations and hardware circuit measurements are developed for the memristor-based FHN circuit to confirm MATLAB numerical simulations. In addition, it is worth noting that the proposed circuit is a simple non-autonomous memristive neuron circuit that is particularly easy to physically implement.