A transition to sharp timing in stochastic leaky integrate-and-fire neurons driven by frozen noisy input

Mathematical Frameworks for Oscillatory Network Dynamics in Neuroscience

The tools of weakly coupled phase oscillator theory have had a profound impact on the neuroscience community, providing insight into a variety of network behaviours ranging from central pattern generation to synchronisation, as well as predicting novel network states such as chimeras. However, there are many instances where this theory is expected to break down, say in the presence of strong coupling, or must be carefully interpreted, as in the presence of stochastic forcing. There are also surprises in the dynamical complexity of the attractors that can robustly appear-for example, heteroclinic network attractors. In this review we present a set of mathematical tools that are suitable for addressing the dynamics of oscillatory neural networks, broadening from a standard phase oscillator perspective to provide a practical framework for further successful applications of mathematics to understanding network dynamics in neuroscience.

Successive spike times predicted by a stochastic neuronal model with a variable input signal

Two different stochastic processes are used to model the evolution of the membrane voltage of a neuron exposed to a time-varying input signal. The first process is an inhomogeneous Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process and its first passage time through a constant threshold is used to model the first spike time after the signal onset. The second process is a Gauss-Markov process identified by a particular mean function dependent on the first passage time of the first process. It is shown that the second process is also of a diffusion type. The probability density function of the maximum between the first passage time of the first and the second process is considered to approximate the distribution of the second spike time. Results obtained by simulations are compared with those following the numerical and asymptotic approximations. A general equation to model successive spike times is given. Finally, examples with specific input signals are provided.