Effects of time-periodic intercoupling strength on burst synchronization of a clustered neuronal network

• Non-linear dynamics of clustered neuronal network, which contains several subnetworks, are investigated.
• Due to synaptic plasticity, effects of time-dependent intercoupling strength on burst synchronization of neuronal networks are investigated.
• Tuning the frequency of time-periodic intercoupling strength will change burst synchrony greatly.
• Increasing the amplitude of time-periodic intercoupling strength not always enhance synchronization, it can also decrease it.

In this paper, we investigate the effect of time-periodic intercoupling strength on burst synchronization of a clustered neuronal network. We mainly focus on discussing the effects of amplitude and frequency of the time-periodic intercoupling strength on burst synchronization. We found that by tuning the frequency, burst synchrony of the clustered neuronal network could change from higher synchronized states to low synchronized states, and vice versa. While for the amplitude, we surprisingly found that with increasing of the amplitude, burst synchrony of the clustered neuronal network is not always enhanced. We know that synchronization has close relationship with cognitive activities and brain disorders. Thus, our results could give us some useful insight on the important role of time-dependent couplings in neuronal systems.