Synaptic plasticity induced transition of spike propagation in neuronal networks

We investigate the impact of short-term plasticity on spike propagation in neuronal networks. We shown that for different combinations of the synaptic rise and decay time, neurons in the network exhibit a variety of different spike propagation transitions as the parameter related to the short-term plasticity increases. We establish the criteria for the existence and stability of simple and composite traveling waves, and we verify the analytical results by means of numerical simulations. Interestingly, we discover that the coexistence of simple and composite traveling waves, as well as the coexistence of stable and unstable waves is possible, provided only the short-term plasticity is properly set. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.