Efeitos da heterogeneidade neuronal na sincronização de populações corticais acopladas unidirecionalmente

Abstract

Two neuronal populations unidirectionally connected in a sender-receiver configuration can present diversity in their phase relations. In particular, the system can exhibit anticipated synchronization (AS), which is characterized by a negative phase-lag. This phenomenon has been reported in electrophysiological data of non-human primates and human EEG during a visual discrimination cognitive task. In electrophysiological data, the unidirectional coupling could be accessed by Granger causality and can be accompanied by both positive, negative, or zero phase difference between cortical areas. In neuronal models the unidirectional connection is part of the model. A transition from the usual delayed synchronization (DS, with positive phase-lag) to AS has been reported between neuronal populations depending on the amount of inhibition and external noise at the receiver population. Here, we show that a local property of the receiver population as neuronal heterogeneity can determine the dynamical relation between the sender and the receiver populations. We show that the internal dynamics of the receiver depends on the proportion of the different types of neurons (for example: regular spiking, intrinsically bursting and chattering). In particular, we show that our model exhibits excitation-inhibition synaptic balance for both DS and AS regimes. Furthermore, we show that the system can exhibit a transition from DS to AS via phase bi-stability or via zero-lag synchronization, mediated by the proportion of different types of neurons.