Synchronous Behavior of Two Coupled Biological Neurons

Robert C. Elson; Allen I. Selverston; Ramon Huerta; Nikolai F. Rulkov; Mikhail I. Rabinovich; Henry D. I. Abarbanel

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.5692

Synchronous Behavior of Two Coupled Biological Neurons

Robert C. Elson, Allen I. Selverston, Ramon Huerta, Nikolai F. Rulkov, Mikhail I. Rabinovich, and Henry D. I. Abarbanel

Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 5692 – Published 21 December 1998

Abstract

We report experimental studies of synchronization phenomena in a pair of biological neurons that interact through naturally occurring, electrical coupling. When these neurons generate irregular bursts of spikes, the natural coupling synchronizes slow oscillations of membrane potential, but not the fast spikes. By adding artificial electrical coupling we studied transitions between synchrony and asynchrony in both slow oscillations and fast spikes. We discuss the dynamics of bursting and synchronization in living neurons with distributed functional morphology.

Received 30 December 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.5692

Authors & Affiliations

Robert C. Elson^1,2, Allen I. Selverston^1,2,3, Ramon Huerta^2,4, Nikolai F. Rulkov², Mikhail I. Rabinovich², and Henry D. I. Abarbanel^2,5

¹Department of Biology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0357
²Institute for Nonlinear Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0402
³Instituto de Neurobiologica, Old San Juan, 00901, Puerto Rico
⁴ETS de Informatica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28409 Madrid, Spain
⁵Department of Physics and Marine Physical Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093