Fig. 20

Schematic diagram showing a trajectory \(x(t)\) (solid line) approaching part of a robust heteroclinic network in phase space (bold dashed lines). The nodes \(x_{i}\) represent equilibria or periodic orbits of saddle type and the invariant subspaces \(P_{i}\) are forced to exist by model assumptions and there are connecting (heteroclinic) orbits \(c_{i}\) that connect the nodes within the \(P_{i}\) in a robust manner. A neighbourhood of the connecting orbits \(c_{i}\) is an absorbing stable heteroclinic channel that can be used to describe various aspects of neural system function in systems with this dynamics; see for example [250]