Please join us for the Applied Math Seminar on Monday, 11/19 at 4:00 PM in Tech M416.

Title: Dynamics of Large Networks of Neurons: Asynchronous and Synchronous Irregular States

Speaker: Nicolas Brunel, University of Chicago

Abstract: The dynamics of neural systems in vivo is characterized by a large amount of variability at all scales, from the molecular to the macroscopic scales. In particular, electrophysiological recordings of single neurons of cerebral cortex show a high degree of irregularity, while recordings at the mesoscopic level (LFP) show the existence of a diversity of states, which are either asynchronous or synchronous. The talk will give an overview of studies whose aim is to better understand the mechanisms understanding these behaviors. The talk will start at the single neuron level, and describe analytical tools that allow to characterize the stochastic dynamics of simplified spiking neuron models (such as the standard leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) model). The second part of the talk will be devoted to the network level. Analytical results on the dynamics of randomly connected networks of LIFs will be presented, that shed light on the possible mechanisms underlying various states observed in cortex, and the transitions between these states.