title: Interplay between excitability type and distributions of neuronal connectivity determines neuronal network synchronization.
abstract: While the interplay between neuronal excitability properties and global properties of network topology is known to affect network propensity for synchronization, it is not clear how detailed characteristics of these properties affect spatiotemporal pattern formation. Here we study mixed networks, composed of neurons having type I and/or type II phase response curves, with varying distributions of local and random connections and show that not only average network properties, but also the connectivity distribution statistics, significantly affect network synchrony. Namely, we study networks with fixed networkwide properties, but vary the number of random connections that nodes project. We show that varying node excitability (type I vs type II) influences network synchrony most dramatically for systems with long-tailed distributions of the number of random connections per node. This indicates that a cluster of even a few highly rewired cells with a high propensity for synchronization can alter the degree of synchrony in the network as a whole. We show this effect generally on a network of coupled Kuramoto oscillators and investigate the impact of this effect more thoroughly in pulse-coupled networks of biophysical neurons.
authors.affiliation: Biophysics Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Sima
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mofakham
authors.affiliation: Physics and Astronomy Department and Neuroscience Program, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio 43015, USA.
authors.forename: Christian G
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Fink
authors.affiliation: Mathematics Department and Anesthesiology Department, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Booth
authors.affiliation: Biophysics Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.|Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Michal R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Zochowski
mesh_terms: D055724:Electrophysiological Phenomena; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology