Bifurcation and chaos in neural excitable system

In this paper, we investigate the dynamical behaviors of neural excitable system without periodic external current (proposed by Chialvo [Generic excitable dynamics on a two-dimensional map. Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 1995;5(3-4):461-79] and with periodic external current as system's parameters vary. The existence and stability of three fixed points, bifurcation of fixed points, the conditions of existences of fold bifurcation, flip bifurcation and Hopf bifurcation are derived by using bifurcation theory and center manifold theorem. The chaotic existence in the sense of Marotto's definition of chaos is proved. We then give the numerical simulated results (using bifurcation diagrams, computations of Maximum Lyapunov exponent and phase portraits), which not only show the consistence with the analytic results but also display new and interesting dynamical behaviors, including the complete period-doubling and inverse period-doubling bifurcation, symmetry period-doubling bifurcations of period-3 orbit, simultaneous occurrence of two different routes (invariant cycle and period-doubling bifurcations) to chaos for a given bifurcation parameter, sudden disappearance of chaos at one critical point, a great abundance of period windows (period 2 to 10, 12, 19, 20 orbits, and so on) in transient chaotic regions with interior crises, strange chaotic attractors and strange non-chaotic attractor. In particular, the parameter k plays a important role in the system, which can leave the chaotic behavior or the quasi-periodic behavior to period-1 orbit as k varies, and it can be considered as an control strategy of chaos by adjusting the parameter k. Combining the existing results in [Generic excitable dynamics on a two-dimensional map. Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 1995;5(3-4):461-79] with the new results reported in this paper, a more complete description of the system is now obtained.