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Updated: May 9, 2026

Optogenetic Entrainment of Hippocampal Theta Oscillations in Behaving Mice
Published on: June 29, 2018
Optimal waveform for fast entrainment of weakly forced nonlinear oscillators
Anatoly Zlotnik1, Yifei Chen, István Z Kiss
1Electrical and Systems Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA. azlotnik@ese.wustl.edu
Abstract:
For many biological and engineered systems, a central function or design goal is to abbreviate the time required to synchronize a rhythmic process to an external forcing signal. We present a theory for deriving the input that effectively minimizes the average transient time required to entrain a phase model, which enables a practical technique for constructing fast entrainment waveforms for general nonlinear oscillators. This result is verified in numerical simulations using the Hodgkin-Huxley neuron model, and in experiments on an oscillatory electrochemical system.
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