On the Role of the Excitation/Inhibition Balance of Homeostatic Artificial Neural Networks

Homeostatic models of artificial neural networks have been developed to explain the self-organization of a stable dynamical connectivity between the neurons of the net. These models are typically two-population models, with excitatory and inhibitory cells. In these models, connectivity is a means to regulate cell activity, and in consequence, intracellular calcium levels towards a desired target level. The excitation/inhibition (E/I) balance is usually set to 80:20, a value characteristic for cortical cell distributions. We study the behavior of these homeostatic models outside of the physiological range of the E/I balance, and we find a pronounced bifurcation at about the physiological value of this balance. Lower inhibition values lead to sparsely connected networks. At a certain threshold value, the neurons develop a reasonably connected network that can fulfill the homeostasis criteria in a stable way. Beyond the threshold, the behavior of the artificial neural network changes drastically, with failing homeostasis and in consequence with an exploding number of connections. While the exact value of the balance at the bifurcation point is subject to the parameters of the model, the existence of this bifurcation might explain the stability of a certain E/I balance across a wide range of biological neural networks. Assuming that this class of models describes the self-organization of biological network connectivity reasonably realistically, the omnipresent physiological balance might represent a case of self-organized criticality in order to obtain a good connectivity while allowing for a stable intracellular calcium homeostasis.