A critical study of network models for neural networks and their dynamics

We use three network models, Erdos-Renyi, Watts-Strogatz and structured nodes, to generate networks sharing several topological features with the neural network of C. elegans (our target network). A new topological measurement, incoming and outgoing edges heat maps, is introduced and used to compare the considered networks. We run these networks as random recurrent neural networks and study their dynamics. We find out that none of the considered network models generates networks similar to the target one both in their topological features and dynamics. Moreover, we find that the dynamics of the target network are very robust to the rewiring of its edges. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.