Collective excitability in a mesoscopic neuronal model of epileptic activity

At the mesoscopic scale, the brain can be understood as a collection of interacting neuronal oscillators, but the extent to which its sustained activity is due to coupling among brain areas is still unclear. Here we address this issue in a simplified situation by examining the effect of coupling bet...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Jedynak, Maciej, Pons, Antonio J., García Ojalvo, Jordi
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2018
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10230/37180
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/37180
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/physreve.97.012204
Access Level:acceso abierto
Descripción
Sumario:At the mesoscopic scale, the brain can be understood as a collection of interacting neuronal oscillators, but the extent to which its sustained activity is due to coupling among brain areas is still unclear. Here we address this issue in a simplified situation by examining the effect of coupling between two cortical columns described via Jansen-Rit neural mass models. Our results show that coupling between the two neuronal populations gives rise to stochastic initiations of sustained collective activity, which can be interpreted as epileptic events. For large enough coupling strengths, termination of these events results mainly from the emergence of synchronization between the columns, and thus it is controlled by coupling instead of noise. Stochastic triggering and noise-independent durations are characteristic of excitable dynamics, and thus we interpret our results in terms of collective excitability.