Heterogeneity-Induced Inhibitory Coherence in An Ensemble of Subthreshold and Suprathreshold Type-I Neurons

TL;DR

This paper investigates how heterogeneity in a neural ensemble induces inhibitory coherence, revealing that suprathreshold neurons synchronize and suppress noise in subthreshold neurons, with coherence degree increasing as heterogeneity grows.

Contribution

It demonstrates heterogeneity-induced inhibitory coherence in a neural ensemble, highlighting the role of suprathreshold neurons in synchronization and noise suppression, a novel insight into neural dynamics.

Findings

Inhibitory coherence emerges when the fraction of suprathreshold neurons exceeds a threshold.

Suprathreshold neurons exhibit coherent mixed-mode oscillations.

Degree of inhibitory coherence increases with the fraction of suprathreshold neurons.

Abstract

We study inhibitory coherence (i.e., collective coherence by synaptic inhibition) in an ensemble of globally-coupled type-I neurons which can fire at arbitrarily low frequencies. No inhibitory coherence is observed in a homogeneous ensemble composed of only subthreshold neurons (which cannot fire spontaneously without noise). By increasing the fraction of (spontaneously firing) suprathreshold neurons $P_{supra}$, heterogeneity-induced inhibitory coherence is investigated in a heterogeneous ensemble of subthreshold and suprathreshold neurons. As $P_{supra}$ passes a threshold $P_{supra}^*$, suprathreshold neurons begin to synchronize and play the role of coherent inhibitors for the emergence of inhibitory coherence. Thus, regularly-oscillating ensemble-averaged global potential appears for $P_{supra} > P_{supra}^*$. For this coherent case suprathreshold neurons exhibit coherent mixed-mode oscillations with a fast subthreshold (small-amplitude) hopping frequency and a lower spiking frequency. By virtue of their coherent inhibition, sparsely synchronized suprathreshold neurons suppress noisy activities of subthreshold neurons. Thus, only coherent subthreshold hoppings appear in the individual potentials of subthreshold neurons. We also characterize the inhibitory coherence in terms of the "statistical-mechanical" spike-based and correlation-based measures and find that the degree of inhibitory coherence increases with increasing $P_{supra}$ for $P_{supra} > P_{supra}^*$. Finally, effect of sparse randomness of synaptic connectivity on the inhibitory coherence and universality of the heterogeneity-induced inhibitory coherence are briefly discussed.