Collective excitability in a mesoscopic neuronal model of epileptic activity

TL;DR

This study models two coupled cortical columns to explore how their interactions can lead to spontaneous, epileptic-like activity, highlighting the role of collective excitability and synchronization in seizure dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a mesoscopic neuronal model demonstrating how coupling induces stochastic epileptic events and their termination through synchronization, emphasizing collective excitability.

Findings

Coupling causes stochastic initiation of epileptic activity.

Synchronization controls the termination of events.

Noise-independent durations indicate excitable dynamics.

Abstract

The brain can be understood as a collection of interacting neuronal oscillators, but the extent to which its sustained activity is due to coupling among brain areas is still unclear. Here we study the joint dynamics of two cortical columns described by Jansen-Rit neural mass models, and show that coupling between the columns gives rise to stochastic initiations of sustained collective activity, which can be interpreted as epileptic events. For large enough coupling strengths, termination of these events results mainly from the emergence of synchronization between the columns, and thus is controlled by coupling instead of noise. Stochastic triggering and noise-independent durations are characteristic of excitable dynamics, and thus we interpret our results in terms of collective excitability.