Lag Synchrony Measures Dynamical Processes Underlying Progression Of Seizure States

We investigate the dynamics of bursting behavior in an intact hippocampal preparation using causal entropy, an adaptive measure of lag synchrony. This analysis, together with a heuristic model of coupled bursting networks, separates experimentally observed bursting dynamics into two dynamical regimes, when bursting is driven by (1) the intranetwork dynamics of a single region, or (2) internetwork feedback between spatially disjoint neural populations. Our results suggest that the abrupt transition between these two states heralds the gradual desynchronization of bursting activity. These results illustrate how superficially homogeneous behavior across loosely coupled networks may harbor hidden, but robust, dynamical processes.