Bifurcation Structure Underlying Tonic-Clonic Seizure Transitions

Authors: Ana Mayora-Cebollero (Universidad de Zaragoza), Oliver Cattell (University of Nottingham), Reuben O’Dea (University of Nottingham), Roberto Barrio (Universidad de Zaragoza), Stephen Coombes (University of Nottingham)

Presentation type: Poster at SNUFA 2026 online workshop (4-5 Nov 2026)

Abstract

Epilepsy is a complex dynamical disease characterized by recurrent, unprovoked seizures, including tonic-clonic seizures. Understanding the dynamical mechanisms underlying transitions between seizure states remains an important challenge in computational neuroscience. Tonic-clonic seizures have been hypothesized to arise in systems exhibiting an instability from one temporal rhythm to another through a quasi-periodic transition. A recently introduced class of next-generation neural field models possesses a sufficiently rich bifurcation structure to support such behaviour. Guided by the bifurcation structure of the corresponding space-clamped model, we identify plausible paths through parameter space and uncover a connecting branch of quasi-periodic solutions in the full spatio-temporal model linking two incommensurate frequencies. Furthermore, the numerical simulations reveal a range of complex dynamical behaviours, including chaotic dynamics. In this presentation, we discuss these findings and illustrate how tonic-clonic seizure transitions can be understood through the underlying bifurcation structure.

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