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Nicolas Brunel

 

Wednesday 26th June 2013

Time: 4pm

 

Basement Seminar Room

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

 

"Connectomics: the dense reconstruction of neuronal circuits"

Oscillations are widespread in nervous systems and occur in  a wide range
of frequencies, spatial scales and behavioural contexts. In the last twenty years, many theorists have attempted to understand the mechanisms of emergence of oscillations in large networks of spiking neurons. In this talk, I will describe an analytical approach that allows to understand the emergence of synchronized oscillations in networks of integrate-and-fire neurons in various types of architectures, and to compute its characteristics (frequency, amplitude) as a function of neuronal, synaptic and network parameters. Including finite-size effects and time-dependent inputs lead to local field potential (LFP) spectra that can fit quantitatively LFPs recorded in primary visual cortex in vivo.

 

Biography

1986-1990 Physics student, Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS), Paris.
1990-1993 PhD (Statistical physics and neural networks) at ENS, Paris (supervised
by Jean-Pierre Nadal) and Universita Roma I (supervised by Daniel Amit)
1993-1995 Post-doctoral associate at Universita Roma I (in Daniel Amit's group)
1995-2001 Junior CNRS research position, Physics Department, ENS, Paris
1998-1999 Visiting scholar, Brandeis University
2001-2005 Junior CNRS research position, Universite Paris Descartes
2005-2012 Senior CNRS research position, Universite Paris Descartes
2012-present Professor, Departments of Statistics and Neurobiology, University of Chicago