Functional Cliques in Developmentally Correlated Neural Networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how specific neurons in a developing neural network with correlated degrees can control collective bursting activity, identifying a functional clique that can trigger or silence network bursts.

Contribution

It introduces a model of developmentally correlated neural networks and reveals the existence of a functional clique capable of controlling network dynamics.

Findings

A small group of neurons can control network bursting.

Functional cliques are formed by neurons with specific activation sequences.

Single neuron stimulation or deletion can significantly alter network activity.

Abstract

We consider a sparse random network of excitatory leaky integrate-and-fire neurons with short-term synaptic depression. Furthermore to mimic the dynamics of a brain circuit in its first stages of development we introduce for each neuron correlations among in-degree and out-degree as well as among excitability and the corresponding total degree, We analyze the influence of single neuron stimulation and deletion on the collective dynamics of the network. We show the existence of a small group of neurons capable of controlling and even silencing the bursting activity of the network. These neurons form a functional clique since only their activation in a precise order and within specific time windows is capable to ignite population bursts.