title: Stimulus-response diversity in local neuronal populations of the cerebral cortex.
abstract: In cortex, neighboring 0.05 mm minicolumns have distinctly different receptive fields (RFs). Within minicolumns, neighboring cells have very similar RFs, but differ prominently in their stimulus-evoked temporal behaviors. This is reproduced in a cortical model that has strong inhibition and semi-random lateral connections among cells with similar RFs. Within modeled minicolumns, non-linear dynamics amplify small differences in cells' lateral inputs into large differences in temporal behaviors. Cells' stimulus-evoked behaviors, though complex, are surprisingly orderly, in that (1) time courses of cells' responses are very stimulus-specific and (2) in the presence of a stimulus, activities of some cells fluctuate coherently, and the patterns of coherence are also stimulus-specific. Thus the model, like real cortex, represents stimulus information in the overall strengths and temporal patterns of cells' responses and in patterns of temporal coherence among cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599-7575, USA.
authors.forename: O V
authors.initials: OV
authors.lastname: Favorov
authors.forename: D G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Kelly
mesh_terms: D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000166:cytology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics