Inhibitory connections enhance pattern recurrence in networks of neocortical pyramidal cells

We consider biological neural networks of pyramidal cells in a quasistatic approximation. We argue that they can be treated as a coupled map lattice o f inhibitory and excitatory site maps, where both maps are derived from per turbation response of rat neocortical pyramidal cells. Inhibitory site maps generate chaotic spike patterns on an open parameter set of positive measu re [R. Stoop, K. Schindler, L.A. Bunimovich, submitted], excitatory site ma ps are nonchaotic. Our network simulations show that local chaos by inhibit ion may be used to synchronize cortical networks. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.