Cortical Field Model of Complex Spiral Traveling Waves

Abstract Complex spiral traveling waves observed experimentally occur across the cortex. The underlying mechanisms responsible for generating such mesoscopic activity are not well understood. Understanding how local cortical neuronal populations interact to produce emergent spiral dynamics during cognitive processing remains unknown. Therefore, to bridge this gap, a spatiotemporal cortical field rate model of local cortical circuits, composed of excitatory and three distinct time-scale inhibitory populations, is proposed. This model is extended to a two-dimensional cortical sheet, consisting of both nonlinear local interactions and diffusive global coupling, with distance-dependent axonal delays. Simulation results indicate mixed-mode oscillations occur in the local circuits, which may represent the coexistence of multiple rhythms and show the emergence of complex dynamics, such as rotating spirals with annihilation events. Spiral waves differentially respond to the strength of the grating input stimulus and exhibit working memory-like characteristics. Also hypothesize that local patterns, such as planar, source, sink, or concentric across the cortex, might be an inherent integral part of the spiral state dynamics.