Fig. 4: Spontaneous traveling waves emerge in network regimes consistent with asynchronous-irregular dynamics.

a The percentage of wave-like activity across ranges of excitatory and inhibitory conductances for 4 mm width topographic network simulations. Each pixel is one simulation of a network as described in Fig. 2d, but with the excitatory and inhibitory conductances corresponding to its x and y coordinate, respectively. Networks consistent with asynchronous-irregular spiking dynamics fall within the black border. White pixels are networks that did not self-sustain or had extremely low/high mean firing rates (FR < 1 or FR > 25 sp/s). b Same as (a), but the mean of the wavelength distribution is plotted. c The region of the parameter space that exhibited asynchronous-irregular activity grew to include smaller synaptic conductances with the size of the network (width 0.5 mm to 4 mm). d The fraction of wave activity present across all self-sustained and asynchronous-irregular networks grew with the size of the simulated network (N = 163, 532, 752, 540, and 599 stable A–I simulations for sizes 0.5, 1, 2, 3, and 4 mm respectively).