Homoclinic bifurcations of periodic orbits en a route from tonic spiking to bursting in neuron models

The methods of qualitative theory of slow-fast systems applied to biophysically realistic neuron models can describe basic scenarios of how these regimes of activity can be generated and transitions between them can be made. We demonstrate how two different codimension-one bifurcations of a saddle-node periodic orbit with homoclinic orbits can explain transitions between tonic spiking and bursting activities in neuron models following Hodgkin–Huxley formalism. In the first case, we argue that the Lukyanov–Shilnikov bifurcation of a saddle-node periodic orbit with non-central homoclinics is behind the phenomena of bi-stability observed in a model of a leech heart interneuron under defined pharmacological conditions. This model can exhibit two coexisting types of oscillations: tonic spiking and bursting. Moreover, the neuron model can also generate weakly chaotic trains of bursting when a control parameter is close to the bifurcation value. In the second case, the transition is continuous and reversible due to the blue sky catastrophe bifurcation. This bifurcation provides a plausible mechanism for the regulation of the burst duration which may increases with no bound as $1/\sqrt{\alpha - \alpha_0}$, where $\alpha_0$ is the transitional value, while the inter-burst interval remains nearly constant.