Certain cells in the brain, for example, thalamic neurons during sleep, show spike-burst activity. We study such spike-burst neural activity and the transitions to a synchronized state using a model of coupled bursting neurons. In an electrically coupled network, we show that the increase of coupling strength increases incoherence first and then induces two different transitions to synchronized states, one associated with bursts and the other with spikes. These sequential transitions to synchronized states are determined by the zero crossings of the maximum transverse Lyapunov exponents. These results suggest that synchronization of spike-burst activity is a multi-time-scale phenomenon and burst synchrony is a precursor to spike synchrony.

• Received 8 September 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.028101