Controlling synchronization of gamma oscillations by astrocytic modulation in a model hippocampal neural network.

Recent in vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrate that astrocytes participate in the maintenance of cortical gamma oscillations and recognition memory. However, the mathematical understanding of the underlying dynamical mechanisms remains largely incomplete. Here we investigate how the interplay of slow modulatory astrocytic signaling with fast synaptic transmission controls coherent oscillations in the network of hippocampal interneurons that receive inputs from pyramidal cells.

Synchronization in multiplex models of neuron-glial systems: Small-world topology and inhibitory coupling.

In this work, we investigate the impact of mixed coupling on synchronization in a multiplex oscillatory network. The network mimics the neural-glial systems by incorporating interacting slow ("glial") and fast ("neural") oscillatory layers. Connections between the "glial" elements form a regular periodic structure, in which each element is connected to the eight other neighbor elements, whereas connections among "neural" elements are represented by Watts-Strogatz networks (from regular and small-world to random Erdös-Rényi graph) with a matching mean node degree.

Multiplexing topologies and time scales: The gains and losses of synchrony.

Inspired by the recent interest in collective dynamics of biological neural networks immersed in the glial cell medium, we investigate the frequency and phase order, i.e., Kuramoto type of synchronization in a multiplex two-layer network of phase oscillators of different time scales and topologies.