Is the cortical dynamics ergodic? A numerical study in partially symmetric networks of spiking neurons

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Tixidre, Ferdinand, Mongillo, Gianluigi, Torcini, Alessandro
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Tixidre, Ferdinand
Mongillo, Gianluigi
Torcini, Alessandro
author_facet Tixidre, Ferdinand
Mongillo, Gianluigi
Torcini, Alessandro
contents Cortical activity in-vivo displays relaxational time scales much longer than the membrane time constant of the neurons or the deactivation time of ionotropic synaptic conductances. The mechanisms responsible for such slow dynamics are not understood. Here, we show that slow dynamics naturally and robustly emerges in dynamically-balanced networks of spiking neurons. This requires only partial symmetry in the synaptic connectivity, a feature of local cortical networks observed in experiments. The symmetry generates an effective, excitatory self-coupling of the neurons that leads to long-lived fluctuations in the network activity, without destroying the dynamical balance. When the excitatory self-coupling is suitably strong, the same mechanism leads to multiple equilibrium states of the network dynamics. Our results reveal a novel dynamical regime of the collective activity in spiking networks, where the memory of the initial state persists for very long times and ergodicity is broken.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_04354
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Is the cortical dynamics ergodic? A numerical study in partially symmetric networks of spiking neurons
Tixidre, Ferdinand
Mongillo, Gianluigi
Torcini, Alessandro
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Cortical activity in-vivo displays relaxational time scales much longer than the membrane time constant of the neurons or the deactivation time of ionotropic synaptic conductances. The mechanisms responsible for such slow dynamics are not understood. Here, we show that slow dynamics naturally and robustly emerges in dynamically-balanced networks of spiking neurons. This requires only partial symmetry in the synaptic connectivity, a feature of local cortical networks observed in experiments. The symmetry generates an effective, excitatory self-coupling of the neurons that leads to long-lived fluctuations in the network activity, without destroying the dynamical balance. When the excitatory self-coupling is suitably strong, the same mechanism leads to multiple equilibrium states of the network dynamics. Our results reveal a novel dynamical regime of the collective activity in spiking networks, where the memory of the initial state persists for very long times and ergodicity is broken.
title Is the cortical dynamics ergodic? A numerical study in partially symmetric networks of spiking neurons
topic Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.04354