Symmetric functional differential equations and neural networks with memory

Abstract

We establish an analytic local Hopf bifurcation theorem and a topological global Hopf bifurcation theorem to detect the existence and to describe the spatial-temporal pattern, the asymptotic form and the global continuation of bifurcations of periodic wave solutions for functional differential equations in the presence of symmetry. We apply these general results to obtain the coexistence of multiple large-amplitude wave solutions for the delayed Hopfield-Cohen-Grossberg model of neural networks with a symmetric circulant connection matrix.