Detection of coupling between oscillators with analytic tests for significance

Abstract

To detect coupling between two oscillators from a time series, we suggest a method based on the estimation of the phase increments correlation with an analytic test for significance. With exemplary oscillators, we show that the suggested method complements a widely used approach based on the estimation of the mean phase coherence. In particular, the suggested method allows efficient detection of a non-synchronizing coupling and, due to a less restrictive null hypothesis, it is applicable to a wider range of situations, including arbitrarily strong phase nonlinearities.