Impact of Bounded Noise and Rewiring on the Formation and Instability of Spiral Waves in a Small-World Network of Hodgkin-Huxley Neurons

PLoS One. 2017 Jan 27;12(1):e0171273. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0171273. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Spiral waves are observed in the chemical, physical and biological systems, and the emergence of spiral waves in cardiac tissue is linked to some diseases such as heart ventricular fibrillation and epilepsy; thus it has importance in theoretical studies and potential medical applications. Noise is inevitable in neuronal systems and can change the electrical activities of neuron in different ways. Many previous theoretical studies about the impacts of noise on spiral waves focus an unbounded Gaussian noise and even colored noise. In this paper, the impacts of bounded noise and rewiring of network on the formation and instability of spiral waves are discussed in small-world (SW) network of Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) neurons through numerical simulations, and possible statistical analysis will be carried out. Firstly, we present SW network of HH neurons subjected to bounded noise. Then, it is numerically demonstrated that bounded noise with proper intensity σ, amplitude A, or frequency f can facilitate the formation of spiral waves when rewiring probability p is below certain thresholds. In other words, bounded noise-induced resonant behavior can occur in the SW network of neurons. In addition, rewiring probability p always impairs spiral waves, while spiral waves are confirmed to be robust for small p, thus shortcut-induced phase transition of spiral wave with the increase of p is induced. Furthermore, statistical factors of synchronization are calculated to discern the phase transition of spatial pattern, and it is confirmed that larger factor of synchronization is approached with increasing of rewiring probability p, and the stability of spiral wave is destroyed.

MeSH terms

  • Action Potentials
  • Biophysical Phenomena*
  • Computer Simulation
  • Electromagnetic Radiation
  • Heart / physiology
  • Humans
  • Membrane Potentials
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Neocortex / physiology*
  • Nerve Net / physiology*
  • Neurons / physiology*
  • Noise
  • Normal Distribution
  • Probability

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2662015QC041 and 2662014BQ069) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31601071, 11372122). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.