We study the existence of chimera states in pulse-coupled networks of bursting Hindmarsh-Rose neurons with nonlocal, global, and local (nearest neighbor) couplings. Through a linear stability analysis, we discuss the behavior of the stability function in the incoherent (i.e., disorder), coherent, chimera, and multichimera states. Surprisingly, we find that chimera and multichimera states occur even using local nearest neighbor interaction in a network of identical bursting neurons alone. This is in contrast with the existence of chimera states in populations of nonlocally or globally coupled oscillators. A chemical synaptic coupling function is used which plays a key role in the emergence of chimera states in bursting neurons. The existence of chimera, multichimera, coherent, and disordered states is confirmed by means of the recently introduced statistical measures and mean phase velocity.

• Received 6 July 2015
• Revised 29 October 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.93.012205