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Alfonso Renart

 

 

Wednesday 2nd April 2014

Time: 4pm

 

Basement Seminar Room

Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR

 

Transient Competitive Amplification in Cortical Circuits

We are interested in understanding how the structure of recurrent cortical circuits generates interesting computations. A proposed role for local recurrent connections is to amplify thalamic input. Their role in amplification, however, can also be studied during spontaneous activity, but observing the relative magnitude of temporal fluctuations of different patterns of population activity. The show that auditory and somatosensory cortical circuits amplify ‘competitive’ patterns of population activity during periods of cortical activation under Urethane anaesthesia. We then investigate what circuit mechanisms could generate this behaviour and identify a circuit motif capable of explaining the data which has interesting dynamical properties.