Suppression of bursting synchronization in clustered scale-free (rich-club) neuronal networks

Functional brain networks are composed of cortical areas that are anatomically and functionally connected. One of the cortical networks for which more information is available in the literature is the cat cerebral cortex. Statistical analyses of the latter suggest that its structure can be described as a clustered network, in which each cluster is a scale-free network possessing highly connected hubs. Those hubs are, on their hand, connected together in a strong fashion ("rich-club" network). We have built a clustered scale-free network inspired in the cat cortex structure so as to study their dynamical properties. In this article, we focus on the synchronization of bursting activity of the cortical areas and how it can be suppressed by means of neuron deactivation through suitably applied light pulses. We show that it is possible to effectively suppress bursting synchronization by acting on a single, yet suitably chosen neuron, as long as it is highly connected, thanks to the "rich-club" structure of the network. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4772998]