Direction of coupling from phases of interacting oscillators:
An information-theoretic approach

Milan Palus
Institute of Computer Science, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Pod vodárenskou vezí 2, 182 07 Prague 8, Czech Republic
E-mail: mp@cs.cas.cz

Aneta Stefanovska
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana
Trzaska 25, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Abstract:

A directionality index based on conditional mutual information is proposed for application to the instantaneous phases of weakly coupled oscillators. Its abilities to distinguish unidirectional from bidirectional coupling, as well as to reveal and quantify asymmetry in bidirectional coupling, are demonstrated using numerical examples of quasiperiodic, chaotic and noisy oscillators, as well as real human cardiorespiratory data.