Mass synchronization: Occurrence and its control with possible applications to brain dynamics

TL;DR

This paper models neuronal populations to understand and control pathological mass synchronization in the brain, revealing that strong drive population synchronization contributes to the phenomenon and proposing a delayed feedback control method.

Contribution

It introduces a coupled oscillator model for brain synchronization, identifies a novel cause of pathological synchronization, and proposes a delayed feedback control strategy.

Findings

Mass synchronization can be driven by a strongly synchronized source population.

Pathological synchronization depends on both coupling strength and drive population synchronization.

Delayed feedback control can effectively suppress pathological synchronization.

Abstract

Occurrence of strong or mass synchronization of a large number of neuronal populations in the brain characterizes its pathological states. In order to establish an understanding of the mechanism underlying such pathological synchronization we present a model of coupled populations of phase oscillators representing the interacting neuronal populations. Through numerical analysis, we discuss the occurrence of mass synchronization in the model, where a source population which gets strongly synchronized drives the target populations onto mass synchronization. We hypothesize and identify a possible cause for the occurrence of such a synchronization, which is so far unknown: Pathological synchronization is caused not just because of the increase in the strength of coupling between the populations but also because of the strength of the strong synchronization of the drive population. We propose a demand-controlled method to control this pathological synchronization by providing a delayed feedback where the strength and frequency of the synchronization determines the strength and the time delay of the feedback. We provide an analytical explanation for the occurrence of pathological synchronization and its control in the thermodynamic limit.