Bifurcation analysis in a neutral differential equation

The dynamics of a neural network model in neutral form is investigated. We prove that a sequence of Hopf bifurcations occurs at the origin as the delay increases. The direction of the Hopf bifurcations and the stability of the bifurcating periodic solutions are determined by using normal form method and center manifold theory. Global existence of periodic solutions is established using a global Hopf bifurcation result of Krawcewicz et al. and a Bendixson's criterion for higher dimensional ordinary differential equations due to Li and Muldowney.