title: New patterns of activity in a pair of interacting excitatory-inhibitory neural fields.
abstract: In this Letter, we study stationary bump solutions in a pair of interacting excitatory-inhibitory (E-I) neural fields in one dimension. We demonstrate the existence of localized bump solutions of persistent activity that can be maintained by the pair of interacting layers when a stationary bump is not supported by either layer in isolation--a scenario which may be relevant as a mechanism for the persistent activity associated with working memory in the prefrontal cortex and may explain why bumps are not seen in in vitro slice preparations. Furthermore, we describe a new type of stationary bump solution arising from a pitchfork bifurcation which produces a stationary bump in each layer with a spatial offset that increases with the bifurcation parameter.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA.
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Folias
authors.forename: G B
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Ermentrout
mesh_terms: D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology*; D055366:Synaptic Potentials