Mind-to-mind heteroclinic coordination: model of sequential episodic memory initiation

TL;DR

This paper models how groups of brains coordinate to form and modify episodic memories through a stable, non-chaotic dynamical process called a heteroclinic torus, revealing how social interactions influence memory dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dynamical model of episodic memory formation in groups, demonstrating the stability of heteroclinic tori and their role in sequential memory processes.

Findings

Heteroclinic torus is a stable attractor in the model.

Coupling strength affects sequential switching between memory states.

Dynamics combine stability with asymptotic instability of individual trajectories.

Abstract

Retrieval of episodic memory is a dynamical process in the large scale brain networks. In social groups, the neural patterns, associated to specific events directly experienced by single members, are encoded, recalled and shared by all participants. Here we construct and study the dynamical model for the formation and maintaining of episodic memory in small ensembles of interacting brains. We prove that the unconventional dynamical attractor of this process - the nonsmooth heteroclinic torus - is structurally stable within the Lotka-Volterra-like sets of equations. Dynamics on this torus combines absence of chaos with asymptotic instability of every separate trajectory; its adequate quantitative characteristics are length-related Lyapunov exponents. Variation of the coupling strength between the participants results in different types of sequential switching between metastable states; we interpret them as stages in formation and modification of the episodic memory.