History-dependent state selection after transient coupling loss in a conductance-based bioelectric network

Description Bioelectric multistability and memory are established phenomena. This computational study asks whether temporary intercellular coupling perturbation can select distinct stable electrical states after exact restoration of the original weighted network. A synthetic conductance-based network of 226 nodes and 622 edges compares uninterrupted coupling with transient weakening and exact restoration, using identical final membrane equations and zero input. The lower-stimulus contrast persisted across five specified source/geometry configurations and occurred in 24 of 42 sampled conductance–restoration comparisons. An alternative cubic mechanism showed isolated bistability and hysteresis but no receiver recruitment or history-dependent network endpoint under the fixed protocol. The contribution is a controlled extension of established phenomena; physiological generality and priority of the exact comparison remain unresolved. The deposit includes the manuscript, supplement, code, frozen protocols, structured results, trajectories and numerical/provenance audits. This preprint has not undergone journal peer review. Original text, data and figures are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Original code is licensed under MIT, with explicit license scopes inside the reproducibility ZIP.