Phase resetting associated with changes of burst shape

Abstract

Based on our stochastic approach to phase resetting of an ensemble of oscillators, in this article we investigate two stimulation mechanisms which exhibit qualitatively different dynamical behaviour as compared with the stimulation mechanism analysed in a previous study. Both the ‘old’ as well as one of the ‘new’ stimulation mechanisms give rise to a characteristic desynchronization behaviour: A stimulus of a given (non-vanishing) intensity administered at a critical initial ensemble phase for a critical duration Tcrit annihilates the ensemble's synchronized oscillation. When the stimulation duration exceeds Tcrit a transition from type 1 resetting to type 0 resetting occurs. The second ‘new’ stimulation mechanism does not cause a desynchronization which is connected with a phase singularity. Correspondingly this mechanism only leads to type 1 resetting. In contrast to the stimulation mechanism analysed in a previous study, both ‘new’ stimulation mechanisms cause burst splitting. According to our results, in this case peak or onset detection algorithms are not able to reveal a correct estimate of the ensemble phase. Thus, whenever stimulation induced burst splitting occurs, phase-resetting curves determined by means of peak or onset detection may be nothing but artifacts. Therefore it is necessary to understand burst splitting in order to develop reliable phase detection algorithms, which are e.g. based on detecting bursts' centers of mass. Our results are important for experimentalists: Burst splitting is, for instance, well-known from tremor resetting experiments. Thus, it often turned out to be at least rather difficult to derive reliable phase-resetting curves from experimental data.