Breathers in two-dimensional neural media

In this Letter we show how nontrivial forms of spatially localized oscillations or breathers can occur in two-dimensional excitable neural media with short-range excitation and long-range inhibition. The basic dynamical mechanism involves a Hopf bifurcation of a stationary pulse solution in the presence of a spatially localized input. Such an input could arise from external stimuli or reflect changes in the excitability of local populations of neurons as a precursor for epileptiform activity. The resulting dynamical instability breaks the underlying radial symmetry of the stationary pulse, leading to the formation of a nonradially symmetric breather. The number of breathing lobes is consistent with the order of the dominant unstable Fourier mode associated with perturbations of the stationary pulse boundary.