TY - JOUR T1 - Short Conduction Delays Cause Inhibition Rather than Excitation to Favor Synchrony in Hybrid Neuronal Networks of the Entorhinal Cortex A1 - Wang, Shuoguo A1 - Chandrasekaran, Lakshmi A1 - Fernandez, Fernando R. A1 - White, John A. A1 - Canavier, Carmen C. Y1 - 2012/01/05 N2 - Author Summary Individual oscillators, such as pendulum-based clocks and fireflies, can spontaneously organize into a coherent, synchronized entity with a common frequency. Neurons can oscillate under some circumstances, and can synchronize their firing both within and across brain regions. Synchronized assemblies of neurons are thought to underlie cognitive functions such as recognition, recall, perception and attention. Pathological synchrony can lead to epilepsy, tremor and other dynamical diseases, and synchronization is altered in most mental disorders. Biological neurons synchronize despite conduction delays, heterogeneous circuit composition, and noise. In biological experiments, we built simple networks in which two living neurons could interact via a computer in real time. The computer precisely controlled the nature of the connectivity and the length of the communication delays. We characterized the synchronization tendencies of individual, isolated oscillators by measuring how much a single input delivered by the computer transiently shortened or lengthened the cycle period of the oscillation. We then used this information to correctly predict the strong dependence of the coordination pattern of the firing of the component neurons on the length of the communication delays. Upon this foundation, we can begin to build a theory of the basic principles of synchronization in more complex brain circuits. JF - PLOS Computational Biology JA - PLOS Computational Biology VL - 8 IS - 1 UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002306 SP - e1002306 EP - PB - Public Library of Science M3 - doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002306 ER -