Techniques and apparatus for enabling and disabling of muting patterns in Radio Access Network (RAN) nodes for the purpose of allowing better detection and use of reference symbols used for over-the-air synchronization. An example method, in a base station operating in a wireless communications network, includes determining that a first neighbor cell of a plurality of neighbor cells is interfering with or is likely to interfere with a signal, from a second neighbor cell, that is used for synchronization. The method further includes sending, towards the first neighbor cell, a request for activation of a reference signal muting pattern by the first neighbor cell, the request including information identifying the second neighbor cell or a stratum of the second neighbor cell.