Bursting as an emergent phenomenon in coupled chaotic maps - art. no. 051914

A two-dimensional map exhibiting chaotic bursting behavior similar to the b ursting electrical activity observed in biological neurons and endocrine ce lls is examined. Model parameters are changed so that the bursting behavior is destroyed. We show that bursting can be recovered in a population of su ch nonbursting cells when they are coupled via the mean field. The phenomen on is explained with a geometric bifurcation analysis. The analysis reveals that emergent bursting in the network is due to coupling alone and is very robust to changes in the coupling strength, and that heterogeneity in the model parameters does not play a role.