Figure 3.

Landscapes of the inhibitory chemical interaction potential $U_i^c(v_{l,i},w_{l,i})$ in Eq. (7) for a non-locally (n_l,c = 8) coupled ring network topology. The symmetry of the potential is governed not by the slow variable w_l,i as in the case of the electrical interaction potential, but by the chemical synaptic strength κ_l,c. In (A) with w_l,i < 0, the asymmetric potential can become symmetric when the synaptic strength is κ_l,c = 0.16. In (B) with w_l,i = 0, the potential remains asymmetric for all values of the synaptic strength κ_l,c. In (C) with w_l,i > 0, the asymmetric potential can again become symmetric when the synaptic strength is κ_l,c = 0.20. Similarly to the electrical synaptic strength, the stronger the intra-layer chemical synaptic strength κ_l,c is, the deeper the energy barrier functions $△U_i^{lc}(w_{l,i})$ and $△U_i^{rc}(w_{l,i})$ are.