Dynamics of self-organized delay adaptation

Adaptation of interaction delays is essential for the functioning of many natural and technical systems. We introduce a novel framework for studying the dynamics of delay adaptation in systems which optimize coincidence of inputs. For the important case of periodically modulated input we derive conditions for the existence and stability of solutions which constrain th set of mechanisms for reliable delay adaptation. Using numerical examples we show that our approach is applicable to more general than periodic input patterns such as Poissonian point processes with coordinated rate fluctuations.[S0031 -9007(99)08395-7].