Propagation of cortical synfire activity: survival probability in single trials and stability in the mean

The synfire hypothesis states that under appropriate conditions volleys of synchronized spikes (pulse packets) can propagate through the cortical network by traveling along chains of groups of cortical neurons. Here, we present results from network simulations, taking full account of the variability in pulse packet realizations. We repeatedly stimulated a synfire chain of model neurons and estimated activity (a) and temporal jitter (sigma) of the spike response for each neuron group in the chain in many trials. The survival probability of the activity was assessed for each point in (a, sigma)-space. The results confirm and extend our earlier predictions based on single neuron properties and a deterministic state-space analysis [Diesmann, M., Gewaltig, M.-O., & Aertsen, A. (1999). Stable propagation of synchronous spiking in cortical neural networks. Nature, 402, 529-533].