Topological analysis of chaos in neural spike train bursts

We show how a topological model which describes the stretching and squeezing mechanisms responsible for creating chaotic behavior can be extracted from the neural spike train data. The mechanism we have identified is the same one ("gateau roule," or jelly-roll) which has previously been identified in the Duffing oscillator [Gilmore and McCallum, Phys. Rev. E 51, 935 (1995)] and in a YAG laser [Boulant et al., Phys. Rev. E 55, 5082 (1997)]. (c) 1999 American Institute of Physics.