The effect of synaptic time delay on synchronization in small-world neuronal networks

In this work we have studied the effect of synaptic time delay on synchronization in small-world networks of bursting neurons coupled with electrical synapses. The obtained results, based on extensive simulations of conductance-based type of neurons in an oscillatory regime, showed that transitions of the spatiotemporal synchrony of neurons can be induced by the variations of the information transmission delay. It has been observed that as the delay increases regions of synchronization and nonsynchronization appear alternately. Furthermore, the rewiring probability of small-world topology is also observed to be another important factor in the generation of coherent spiking. In this context, we also found that a suitable rewired network topology can enhance the synchronized neuronal activity with the appropriate delay.