Dynamic instabilities in scalar neural field equations with space-dependent delays (Q2643338)

The authors consider a class of scalar integral equations with a form of space-dependent delay. These models provide minimal descriptions of neural tissue with biological features that include synaptic and dendritic processing, the effects of axonal delays and spike frequency adaptation. Such systems are known to support a dynamic oscillatory Turing instability of the homogeneous steady state. The authors develop a weakly nonlinear analysis of the travelling and standing waves that form beyond the point of instability. The appropriate amplitude equations are found to be the Ginzburg-Landau equations describing a Turing-Hopf bifurcation. One utilizes the language of integral equations and spatio-temporal kernels. By pursuing a systematic multiple-scales approach for deriving amplitude equations in an integral framework, the authors recover a number of known results about pattern formation in neural fields. The authors illustrate the predictive power of their analysis with comparisons versus direct numerical simulations, paying particular attention to the competition between standing and travelling waves and the onset of Benjamin-Feir instabilities.