# Pulse-coupled model of excitable elements on heterogeneous sparse networks

## TL;DR

This paper investigates the dynamics of pulse-coupled excitable elements on heterogeneous scale-free networks, revealing diverse activity regimes, synchronization phenomena, and a framework to predict firing rates based on network heterogeneity.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel framework to estimate mean firing rates and decompose global dynamics in heterogeneous networks, applicable beyond scale-free topologies.

## Key findings

- Self-sustained activity regimes with various behaviors identified.
- Network properties influence population firing rate.
- A predictive framework accurately estimates firing rates in highly heterogeneous networks.

## Abstract

We study a pulse-coupled dynamics of excitable elements in uncorrelated scale-free networks. Regimes of self-sustained activity are found for homogeneous and inhomogeneous couplings, in which the system displays a wide variety of behaviors, including periodic and irregular global spiking signals, as well as coherent oscillations, an unexpected form of synchronization. Our numerical results also show that the properties of the population firing rate depend on the size of the system, particularly its structure and average value over time. However, a few straightforward dynamical and topological strategies can be introduced to enhance or hinder these global behaviors, rendering a scenario where signal control is attainable, which incorporates a basic mechanism to turn off the dynamics permanently. As our main result, here we present a framework to estimate, in the stationary state, the mean firing rate over a long time window and to decompose the global dynamics into average values of the inter-spike-interval of each connectivity group. Our approach provides accurate predictions of these average quantities when the network exhibits high heterogeneity, a remarkable finding that is not restricted exclusively to the scale-free topology.