Dynamical mean-filed approximation to small-world networks of spiking neurons: From local to global, and/or from regular to random couplings

TL;DR

This paper develops a semianalytical dynamical mean-field theory for small-world networks of noisy FitzHugh-Nagumo neurons, capturing effects of local to global and regular to random couplings on synchronization and firing precision.

Contribution

The paper extends a previous DMA to account for a wide range of couplings and correlations in small-world networks, transforming stochastic equations into a manageable deterministic form.

Findings

Synchronization worsens with increased randomness p.

Network distance shortens as p increases.

The theory agrees well with direct simulations.

Abstract

By extending a dynamical mean-field approximation (DMA) previously proposed by the author [H. Hasegawa, Phys. Rev. E {\bf 67}, 41903 (2003)], we have developed a semianalytical theory which takes into account a wide range of couplings in a small-world network. Our network consists of noisy $N$-unit FitzHugh-Nagumo (FN) neurons with couplings whose average coordination number $Z$ may change from local ($Z \ll N $) to global couplings ($Z=N-1$) and/or whose concentration of random couplings $p$ is allowed to vary from regular ($p=0$) to completely random (p=1). We have taken into account three kinds of spatial correlations: the on-site correlation, the correlation for a coupled pair and that for a pair without direct couplings. The original $2 N$-dimensional {\it stochastic} differential equations are transformed to 13-dimensional {\it deterministic} differential equations expressed in terms of means, variances and covariances of state variables. The synchronization ratio and the firing-time precision for an applied single spike have been discussed as functions of $Z$ and $p$. Our calculations have shown that with increasing $p$, the synchronization is {\it worse} because of increased heterogeneous couplings, although the average network distance becomes shorter. Results calculated by out theory are in good agreement with those by direct simulations.