Regular dynamics in a delayed network of two neurons with all-or-none activation functions (Q2485287)

The subject of the paper is the following delay differential system, which is a variant of a model for two interacting neurons \[ x' = -\mu x + a_{11} f(x(t-\tau)) + a_{12} f(y(t-\tau)), \] \[ y' = -\mu y + a_{21} f(x(t-\tau)) + a_{22} f(y(t-\tau)), \] where \(x\in \mathbb{R}\) and \(y\in \mathbb{R}\) are the state variables of the two neurons, \(\mu>0\) is the decay rate, \(\tau>0\) is the synaptic transmission delay, and \(a_{ij}\) are synaptic weights. The activation function \(f\) is chosen to be piecewise constant \(f(\xi)=-\delta \) for \(\xi>0\) and \(f(\xi)=\delta \) for \(\xi<0\), where \(\delta>0\) is some constant. Using the piecewise-linear structure of the right-hand side, the authors use methods, which are based on the explicit integration along consecutive delay intervals. As a result, they reduce the dynamics to a one-dimensional map. This allows one to obtain different criteria for the asymptotic behavior of solutions, and, in particular, the existence, multiplicity, and stability of periodic solutions.