  Two dynamical systems unidirectionally coupled in a sender-receiver
configuration can synchronize with a nonzero phase-lag. In particular, the
system can exhibit anticipated synchronization (AS), which is characterized by
a negative phase-lag, if the receiver (R) also receives a delayed negative
self-feedback. Recently, AS was shown to occur between cortical-like neuronal
populations in which the self-feedback is mediated by inhibitory synapses. In
this biologically plausible scenario, a transition from the usual delayed
synchronization (DS, with positive phase-lag) to AS can be mediated by the
inhibitory conductances in the receiver population. Here we show that depending
on the relation between excitatory and inhibitory synaptic conductances the
system can also exhibit phase-bistability between anticipated and delayed
synchronization. Furthermore, we show that the amount of noise at the receiver
and the synaptic conductances can mediate the transition from stable
phase-locking to a bistable regime and eventually to a phase-drift (PD). We
suggest that our spiking neuronal populations model could be potentially useful
to study phase-bistability in cortical regions related to bistable perception.
