Seminars are open to all visitors and start Monday at 16:00 sharp. Coffee and tea will be served from 15:45. The seminar series lectures are in a colloquiumzaal at the third floor (entrance level) of the Faculty building of Erasmus MC.
David McCormick
Cortical mechanisms of recurrent network activity.
| 2009-10-05 | Room: C 113 (ziekenhuis) |
The neocortex is a large sheet of neurons that are highly interconnected,allowing for the generation of flexible behavior and unique and creativedecisions. The flow of activity within the cortex depends upon context within which the cortex is operating. On a cellular level, context is the pattern of synaptic activity occurring through the neuronal elements involved in the processing in question. The ebb and flow of synaptic potentials determines a neurons "gain" or input-output relationship. We hypothesize that rapid alterations in functional connectivity in the cortex arise through changes in neuronal gain, which is controlled by alterations in synaptic barrages. In this talk we will examine the mechanisms by which the cortex may operate, how synaptic potentials may influence this operation, and finally, whether or not there is a potential role for other non-classical processes, such as field potentials, in cortical processing.