Regular Article

Two-fold effects of inhibitory neurons on the onset of synchronization in Izhikevich neuronal networks

Institute of Computational Physics and Complex Systems, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu 730000, P.R. China

^a e-mail: wuzhx@lzu.edu.cn

Received: 7 January 2019
Received in final form: 5 April 2019
Published online: 22 May 2019

Abstract

Synchronization is a widely studied phenomenon in neuroscience. The ever-increasing morbidity of brain diseases makes the investigation on this topic significant in both psychology and medicine. In this paper, we consider an Izhikevich neuronal network composed of both excitatory and inhibitory neurons, and introduce the Tsodyks-Uziel-Markram (TUM) model of neuronal transmission. To study the impact of inhibitory neurons in the synchronization, we make comparative studies by considering the inhibitory neurons could fire either spontaneously or not in the network. Simulation results exemplify that the synchronized system shows different periodic-like oscillatory patterns of multi-stripes. We find that the inhibitory neurons have two-fold impacts on the oscillatory patterns. On the one hand, they can delay the firing of the neurons, deleterious for synchronization. On the other hand, they are able to facilitate the transition of the oscillatory patterns, beneficial for synchronization.