Dynamical Responses to External Stimuli for Both Cases of Excitatory and Inhibitory Synchronization in A Complex Neuronal Network

TL;DR

This study investigates how external stimuli influence synchronization in complex neuronal networks with excitatory and inhibitory synapses, revealing different effects on stimulated and non-stimulated neurons and their synchronization dynamics.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of dynamical responses to external stimuli in excitatory versus inhibitory neuronal synchronization within complex networks.

Findings

Stimulated neurons phase-lock to external stimuli in both cases.

External stimuli enhance synchronization in excitatory neurons but disrupt it in inhibitory neurons.

The response depends on the synaptic-coupling type and stimulus amplitude.

Abstract

For studying how dynamical responses to external stimuli depend on the synaptic-coupling type, we consider two types of excitatory and inhibitory synchronization (i.e., synchronization via synaptic excitation and inhibition) in complex small-world networks of excitatory regular spiking (RS) pyramidal neurons and inhibitory fast spiking (FS) interneurons. For both cases of excitatory and inhibitory synchronization, effects of synaptic couplings on dynamical responses to external time-periodic stimuli $S(t)$ (applied to a fraction of neurons) are investigated by varying the driving amplitude $A$ of $S(t)$. Stimulated neurons are phase-locked to external stimuli for both cases of excitatory and inhibitory couplings. On the other hand, the stimulation effect on non-stimulated neurons depends on the type of synaptic coupling. The external stimulus $S(t)$ makes a constructive effect on excitatory non-stimulated RS neurons (i.e., it causes external phase lockings in the non-stimulated sub-population), while $S(t)$ makes a destructive effect on inhibitory non-stimulated FS interneurons (i.e., it breaks up original inhibitory synchronization in the non-stimulated sub-population). As results of these different effects of $S(t)$, the type and degree of dynamical response (e.g., synchronization enhancement or suppression), characterized by the dynamical response factor $D_f$ (given by the ratio of synchronization degree in the presence and absence of stimulus), are found to vary in a distinctly different way, depending on the synaptic-coupling type. Furthermore, we also measure the matching degree between the dynamics of the two sub-populations of stimulated and non-stimulated neurons in terms of a "cross-correlation" measure $M_c$. With increasing $A$, based on $M_c$, we discuss the cross-correlations between the two sub-populations, affecting the dynamical responses to $S(t)$.