Chimera state in complex networks of bistable Hodgkin-Huxley neurons

In this paper we study a chimera state in complex networks of bistable Hodgkin-Huxley neurons with excitatory coupling, which manifests as a termination of spiking activity of a part of interacting neurons. We provide a detailed investigation of this phenomenon in scale-free, small-world, and random networks and show that the chimera state is robust to the network topology. Nevertheless, network topological properties determine the stability of spatiotemporal states and therefore affect the excitability of the chimera state in the whole network. In particular, the scale-free network whose higher degree nodes are more stable to small perturbations is least exposed to chimera formation and exhibits an abrupt transition from a spiking to a silent regime. On the other hand, small-world and random networks are more likely to provide transitions to the chimera state.