  The use of spikes to carry information between brain areas implies complete
or partial synchronization of the neurons involved. The degree of
synchronization reached by two coupled systems and the energy cost of
maintaining their synchronized behaviour is highly dependent on the nature of
the systems. For non-identical systems the maintenance of a synchronized regime
is energetically a costly process. In this work, we study conditions under
which two non-identical electrically coupled neurons can reach an efficient
regime of synchronization at low energy cost. We show that the energy
consumption required to keep the synchronized regime can be spontaneously
reduced if the receiving neuron has adaptive mechanisms able to bring its
biological parameters closer in value to the corresponding ones in the sending
neuron.
