Phase-bistability between anticipated and delayed synchronization in neuronal populations

TL;DR

This paper investigates phase-bistability in coupled neuronal populations, showing how inhibitory and excitatory synaptic conductances, along with noise, can induce transitions between anticipated and delayed synchronization, relevant for cortical bistable perception.

Contribution

It demonstrates the emergence of phase-bistability between anticipated and delayed synchronization in biologically plausible neuronal models influenced by synaptic conductances and noise.

Findings

Phase-bistability depends on the balance of excitatory and inhibitory conductances.

Noise and synaptic conductances mediate transitions from phase-locking to phase-drift.

The model may help understand cortical bistable perception phenomena.

Abstract

Two dynamical systems unidirectionally coupled in a sender-receiver configuration can synchronize with a nonzero phase-lag. In particular, the system can exhibit anticipated synchronization (AS), which is characterized by a negative phase-lag, if the receiver (R) also receives a delayed negative self-feedback. Recently, AS was shown to occur between cortical-like neuronal populations in which the self-feedback is mediated by inhibitory synapses. In this biologically plausible scenario, a transition from the usual delayed synchronization (DS, with positive phase-lag) to AS can be mediated by the inhibitory conductances in the receiver population. Here we show that depending on the relation between excitatory and inhibitory synaptic conductances the system can also exhibit phase-bistability between anticipated and delayed synchronization. Furthermore, we show that the amount of noise at the receiver and the synaptic conductances can mediate the transition from stable phase-locking to a bistable regime and eventually to a phase-drift (PD). We suggest that our spiking neuronal populations model could be potentially useful to study phase-bistability in cortical regions related to bistable perception.