A Simple Network Showing Burst Synchronization without Frequency Locking

The dynamic behavior of a network model consisting of all-to-all excitatory coupled binary neurons with global inhibition is studied analytically and numerically. We prove that for random input signals, the output of the network consists of synchronized bursts with apparently random intermissions of noisy activity. We introduce the fraction of simultaneously firing neurons as a measure for synchrony and prove that its temporal correlation function displays, besides a delta peak at zero indicating random processes, strongly dampened oscillations. Our results suggest that synchronous bursts can be generated by a simple neuronal architecture that amplifies incoming coincident signals. This synchronization process is accompanied by dampened oscillations that, by themselves, however, do not play any constructive role in this and can therefore be considered to be an epiphenomenon.