Here, we investigated the perturbations that switch the activity of the HN and the HCO from bursting to silence. Over a series of simulations, we applied a 30 ms pulse of current with various amplitudes and phases of application in the period of bursting activity. This protocol provided a set of pulse parameters in the (phase, amplitude) parameter space for which a switch was triggered. In the canonical model of a single HN for which the leak conductance was 9.59 nS, both depolarizing and hyperpolarizing pulses could trigger switches (Figure 1). We observed contiguous sets of pulse parameters where triggered switches occurred, but there were also fine structures in the parameter space (Figure 1). We estimated the susceptibility of bursting activity in the HN to perturbations by the proportion of pulse parameter sets that would trigger a switch to the total number of trials. We found that 20.84% of pulses triggered a switch (Figure 1). We repeated this pulse protocol in the HCO for the same parameter values of the ionic conductances, and found that no pulses elicited a switch from bursting to silence. Our results suggest that in a network consisting of bistable elements, the half-center oscillator connectivity protects the functional regime against external perturbations.