Synchronization without oscillatory neurons

Hans Martin R. Arnoldi, Wilfried Brauer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

Experimental results suggest that neurons in the cortex synchronize their action potentials on the millisecond time scale. More importantly this binding expresses functional relationships between the neurons. A model of neuronal interactions is proposed in which simultaneous discharges of neurons develop through specialized synaptic circuits. As an important prerequisite for this synchronization it is demonstrated that SynFire chains, generating different levels of excitation, propagate their activity waves at distinct velocities. Two chains were coupled by excitatory synapses and their activity was initiated at different times. Due to synaptic interactions, activity in the earlier-initiated chain accelerates propagation in the other chain until the two activity waves are synchronized. Compared with several neural network models with oscillatory units, physiologically more plausible neurons are simulated. It is still under debate whether neurons in the cortex show oscillatory discharges per sc. In particular, a high rate of noise relative to very weak synaptic gains cannot impair our results in the neural network simulations.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)209-223
Number of pages15
JournalBiological Cybernetics
Volume74
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1996

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