Stability of synchronous states in sparse neuronal networks

The stability of synchronous states is analyzed in the context of two populations of inhibitory and excitatory neurons, characterized by two different pulse-widths. The problem is reduced to that of determining the eigenvalues of a suitable class of sparse random matrices, randomness being a consequence of the network structure. A detailed analysis, which includes also the study of finite-amplitude perturbations, is performed in the limit of narrow pulses, finding that the overall stability depends crucially on the relative pulse-width. This has implications for the overall property of the asynchronous (balanced) regime.