Inhibitory autapse mediates anticipated synchronization between coupled neurons

Abstract

Two identical autonomous dynamical systems unidirectionally coupled in a sender-receiver configuration can exhibit anticipated synchronization (AS) if the Receiver neuron (R) also receives a delayed negative self-feedback. Recently, AS was shown to occur in a three-neuron motif with standard chemical synapses where the delayed inhibition was provided by an interneuron. Here we show that a two-neuron model in the presence of an inhibitory autapse, which is a massive self-innervation present in the cortical architecture, may present AS. The GABAergic autapse regulates the internal dynamics of the Receiver neuron and acts as the negative delayed self-feedback required by dynamical systems in order to exhibit AS. In this biologically plausible scenario, a smooth transition from the usual delayed synchronization (DS) to AS typically occurs when the inhibitory conductance is increased. The phenomenon is shown to be robust when model parameters are varied within a physiological range. For extremely large values of the inhibitory autapse the system undergoes to a phase-drift regime in which the Receiver is faster than the Sender. Furthermore, we show that the inhibitory autapse promotes a faster internal dynamics of the free-running Receiver when the two neurons are uncoupled, which could be the mechanism underlying anticipated synchronization and the DS-AS transition.

Impacts of autapse on chaotic resonance in single neurons and small-world neuronal networks

“…In this context, the effects of inhibitory autapse were reported in various studies. For example, Pinto et al [40] showed that inhibitory autapse enhances anticipated synchronization in unidirectionally coupled neurons. In another study, it was demonstrated that autaptic self-inhibition by activating a fast disinhibition mechanism supports the synchronization of Parvalbumin positive interneurons in neocortical layer V during cognition related cortical activity [41].…”

Anticipated synchronization in human EEG data: unidirectional causality with negative phase-lag

“…AS has also been observed when the self-feedback was replaced by parameter mismatches [39,40,41,42,43], inhibitory dynamical loops [23,44,45,46] and noise at the receiver [26]. It has been suggested that AS can emerge when the receiver dynamics is faster than the senders [26,46,47,48]. Furthermore, unidirectionally coupled lasers reported both regimes: AS and the usual delayed synchronization (DS, in which the sender predicts the activity of the receiver), depending on the difference between the transmission time and the feedback delay time [37,49].…”

“…AS has also been observed when the self-feedback was replaced by parameter mismatches [39,40,41,42,43], inhibitory dynamical loops [23,44,45,46] and noise at the receiver [26]. It has been suggested that AS can emerge when the receiver dynamics is faster than the senders [26,46,47,48].…”

Neuronal heterogeneity modulates phase-synchronization between unidirectionally coupled populations with excitation-inhibition balance

“…The free-running properties of each population can influence the synchronization patterns between them, when we turn the sender-receiver coupling on (g E > 0) [43][44][45]. In fact, for g E = 0.5 nS and g I = 2.0 nS the motif can exhibit three different regimes depending on X. Illustrative examples of these dynamics are shown in Fig.…”

“…It has been shown that AS can also occur if the delayed self-feedback is replaced by different parameter mismatches at the receiver [39][40][41], a faster internal dynamics of the receiver [42][43][44][45], as well as by an inhibitory loop mediated by chemical synapses [46][47][48][49]. Moreover, when the feedback is not hard-wired in the equation but emerges from system dynamics, two neuronal population can present phase diversity and a transition from AS to DS through zero-lag synchronization, induced by synaptic properties [26,45].…”