Modelling Large–Scale Cortical Activity

Wednesday, January 14, 1998 - 3:30pm - 4:00pm
Keller 3-180
Jack Cowan (University of Chicago)
It is generally agreed that population coding plays an important role in cortical information processing. It follows that the dynamics of large groups of interacting neurons is worth studying. Here we formulate integro-differential equations to describe such dynamics (the Wilson-Cowan equations) and discuss some of their properties and limitations. In particular we show how various dynamical attractors can arise and how they may underlie spatio-temporal population coding in the cortex.