In-phase oscillations from the cooperation of cellular and network positive feedback in synaptically-coupled oscillators

We study the emergent dynamics of a network of synaptically coupled slow-fast oscillators. Synaptic coupling provides a network-level positive feedback mechanism that cooperates with cellular-level positive feedback to ignite in-phase network oscillations. Using analytical bifurcation analysis, we prove that the Perron-Frobenius eigenvector of the network adjacency matrix fully controls the oscillation pattern locally in a neighborhood of a Hopf bifurcation. Besides shifting the focus from the spectral properties of the network Laplacian matrix to the network adjacency matrix, we discuss other key differences between synaptic and diffusive coupling.