Pattern phase diagram of spiking neurons on spatial networks

Abstract

We study an abstracted model of neuronal activity via numerical simulation, and report spatiotemporal pattern formation and critical like dynamics. A population of pulse coupled, discretised, relaxation oscillators is simulated over networks with varying edge density and spatial embeddedness. For intermediate edge density and sufficiently strong spatial embeddedness, we observe a novel spatiotemporal pattern in the field of oscillator phases, visually resembling the surface of a frothing liquid. Increasing the edge density results in critical dynamics, with the distribution of neuronal avalanche sizes following a power law with exponent one. Further increase of the edge density results in metastable behaviour between pattern formation and synchronisation, before transitioning the system entirely into synchrony.