CASCADING NEURONAL SYNCHRONIZATION IN COMPUTER SIMULATIONS

Publication Date

4-5-2019

Document Type

Poster

Degree Type

Undergraduate

Department

Physics

Mentor

Rosangela Follmann

Mentor Department

Physics

Abstract

Synchronous processes are commonly found in nervous systems. These neuronal synchronicities can be beneficial or harmful, depending on the type and location of the synchronization. For instance, “good” synchronization during different sleep cycles allows our brain to go through healthy processes like memory consolidation, while on the other hand, “bad” synchronization can induce a seizure in an epileptic brain. Neuronal synchronization is therefore of great relevance and a good understanding of the mechanisms underlying the synchronous processes could be helpful in two ways in order to: (1) facilitate and stabilize synchronicity when good, and (2) prevent and hinder synchronicity when bad. Here we present results we obtained running computer simulations of networks of neurons in a variety of situations, including testing how strong a coupling between neurons should be in order to make a diversity of networked neurons to get in synchrony. Our simulations involve grids with tens or hundreds of neurons, or more, and can be computationally very intensive. In this presentation we also discuss how parallel processing can be used to expedite the calculations.

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