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Computational modeling of the spontaneous dynamics over the whole brain provides critical insight into the spatiotemporal organization of brain dynamics at multiple resolutions and their alteration to changes in brain structure (e.g. in diseased states, aging, across individuals). Recent experimental evidence further suggests that the adverse effect of lesions is visible on spontaneous dynamics characterized by changes in resting state functional connectivity and its graph theoretical properties (e.g. modularity). These changes originate from altered neural dynamics in individual brain areas that are otherwise poised towards a homeostatic equilibrium to maintain a stable excitatory and inhibitory activity. In this work, we employ a homeostatic inhibitory mechanism, balancing excitation and inhibition in the local brain areas of the entire cortex under neurological impairments like lesions to understand global functional recovery (across brain networks and individuals). Previous computational and empirical studies have demonstrated that the resting state functional connectivity varies primarily due to the location and specific topological characteristics of the lesion. We show that local homeostatic balance provides a functional recovery by re-establishing excitation-inhibition balance in all areas that are affected by lesion. We systematically compare the extent of recovery in the primary hub areas (e.g. default mode network (DMN), medial temporal lobe, medial prefrontal cortex) as well as other sensory areas like primary motor area, supplementary motor area, fronto-parietal and temporo-parietal networks. Our findings suggest that stability and richness similar to the normal brain dynamics at rest are achievable by re-establishment of balance. This study was funded by A.B. Ramalingaswami fellowship (BT/RLF/Re-entry/31/2011) and Innovative Young Bio-technologist Award (IYBA) (BT/07/IYBA/2013) from the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India. GD is supported by the ERC Advanced Grant: DYSTRUCTURE (n. 295129), by the Spanish Research ProjectPSI2013-42091-P, and funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-ICT Human Brain Project (grant no. 60402)).

Children who sustain a prenatal or perinatal brain injury intheform of a stroke develop remarkably normal cognitivefunctions in certain areas, with a particular strength in language skills. A dominant explanation for this is that brain regions from the contralesional hemisphere “take over” their functions, whereas the damaged areas and other ipsilesional regions play much less of a role. However, it is difficult to tease apart whether changes in neural activity after early brain injury are due to damage caused by the lesion or by processes related to postinjury reorganization. We sought to differentiate between these two causes by investigating the functional connectivity (FC) of brain areas during the resting state in human children with early brain injury using a computational model. We simulated a large-scale network consisting of realistic models of local brain areas coupled through anatomical connectivity information of healthy and injured participants. We then compared the resulting simulated FC values of healthy and injured participants with the empirical ones. We found that the empirical connectivity values, especially of the damaged areas, correlated better with simulated values of a healthy brain than those of an injured brain. This result indicates that the structural damage caused by an early brain injury is unlikely to have an adverse and sustained impact on the functional connections, albeit during the resting state, of damaged areas. Therefore, these areas could continue to play a role in the development of near-normal function in certain domains such as language in these children. M.H.A. and G.D. weresupported bythe European Research Council(Advanced Grant DYSTRUCTURE 295129). The imaging data analyzed in this study were obtained as part of a project at The University of Chicago in language development that was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development–National Institutes of Health (Grant P01 HD040605). Their support is gratefully acknowledged, as is the help of our coinvestigators on that grant, Susan Goldin-Meadow and Susan Cohen Levine, and our research assistant, Victoria Li. The authors declare no competing financial interests

Estimating the difficulty of a decision is a fundamental process to elaborate complex and adaptive behaviour. In this paper, we show that the movement time of behaving monkeys performing a decision-making task is correlated with decision difficulty and that the activity of a population of neurons in ventral Premotor cortex correlates with the movement time. Moreover, we found another population of neurons that encodes the discriminability of the stimulus, thereby supplying another source of information about the difficulty of the decision. The activity of neurons encoding the difficulty can be produced by very different computations. Therefore, we show that decision difficulty can be encoded through three different mechanisms: 1. Switch time coding, 2. rate coding and 3. binary coding. This rich representation reflects the basis of different functional aspects of difficulty in the making of a decision and the possible role of difficulty estimation in complex decision scenarios., Author Summary Understanding how the brain produces complex cognitive functions has been a crucial question since ancient philosophical inquiries. The encoding of decision difficulty in the brain is fundamental for complex and adaptive behaviour, and can provide valuable information in uncertain environments where the future outcome of a choice must be evaluated beforehand. Here we show that neurons in premotor cortex represent the difficulty of a decision using at least three different variables: 1) the time of the neuronal response, 2) the intensity of the neuronal response, 3) the probability of switching from a low activity to a high activity profile. Moreover, we show that, by encoding the time elapsed from the end of the stimulus and commitment to a choice, another set of premotor neurons is able to provide information about the difficulty of the decision. These results show that the brain is implementing heterogeneous neural mechanisms to fulfill a complex cognitive function.

BrainX3 is a large-scale simulation of human brain activity with real-time interaction, rendered in 3D in a virtual reality environment, which combines computational power with human intuition for the exploration and analysis of complex dynamical networks. We ground this simulation on structural connectivity obtained from diffusion spectrum imaging data and model it on neuronal population dynamics. Users can interact with BrainX3 in real-time by perturbing brain regions with transient stimulations to observe reverberating network activity, simulate lesion dynamics or implement network analysis functions from a library of graph theoretic measures. BrainX3 can thus be used as a novel immersive platform for exploration and analysis of dynamical activity patterns in brain networks, both at rest or in a task-related state, for discovery of signaling pathways associated to brain function and/or dysfunction and as a tool for virtual neurosurgery. Our results demonstrate these functionalities and shed insight on the dynamics of the resting-state attractor. Specifically, we found that a noisy network seems to favor a low firing attractor state. We also found that the dynamics of a noisy network is less resilient to lesions. Our simulations on TMS perturbations show that even though TMS inhibits most of the network, it also sparsely excites a few regions. This is presumably due to anti-correlations in the dynamics and suggests that even a lesioned network can show sparsely distributed increased activity compared to healthy resting-state, over specific brain areas. This research has been supported by the EC FP7 project, CEEDS (FP7-ICT-2009-5), under grant agreement n. 258749.

In principle, cortico-cortical communication dynamics is simple: neurons in one cortical area communicate by sending action potentials that release glutamate and excite their target neurons in other cortical areas. In practice, knowledge about cortico-cortical communication dynamics is minute. One reason is that no current technique can capture the fast spatio-temporal cortico-cortical evolution of action potential transmission and membrane conductances with sufficient spatial resolution. A combination of optogenetics and monosynaptic tracing with virus can reveal the spatio-temporal cortico-cortical dynamics of specific neurons and their targets, but does not reveal how the dynamics evolves under natural conditions. Spontaneous ongoing action potentials also spread across cortical areas and are difficult to separate from structured evoked and intrinsic brain activity such as thinking. At a certain state of evolution, the dynamics may engage larger populations of neurons to drive the brain to decisions, percepts and behaviors. For example, successfully evolving dynamics to sensory transients can appear at the mesoscopic scale revealing how the transient is perceived. As a consequence of these methodological and conceptual difficulties, studies in this field comprise a wide range of computational models, large-scale measurements (e.g., by MEG, EEG), and a combination of invasive measurements in animal experiments. Further obstacles and challenges of studying cortico-cortical communication dynamics are outlined in this critical review. Claus C. Hilgetag is supported by DFG grants HI 1286/5-1 and/nSFB 936/A1. Per E. Roland is supported by The Danish Ministry/nfor Science and Innovations through FSS, and the University/nof Copenhagen 2016 funds through the Dynamical Systems/nInterdisciplinary Network

The mechanisms responsible for the integration of sensory information from different modalities have become a topic of intense interest in psychophysics and neuroscience. Many authors now claim that early, sensory-based cross-modal convergence improves performance in detection tasks. An important strand of supporting evidence for this claim is based on statistical models such as the Pythagorean model or the probabilistic summation model. These models establish statistical benchmarks representing the best predicted performance under the assumption that there are no interactions between the two sensory paths. Following this logic, when observed detection performances surpass the predictions of these models, it is often inferred that such improvement indicates cross-modal convergence. We present a theoretical analyses scrutinizing some of these models and the statistical criteria most frequently used to infer early cross-modal interactions during detection tasks. Our current analysis shows how some common misinterpretations of these models lead to their inadequate use and, in turn, to contradictory results and misleading conclusions. To further illustrate the latter point, we introduce a model that accounts for detection performances in multimodal detection tasks but for which surpassing of the Pythagorean or probabilistic summation benchmark can be explained without resorting to early cross-modal interactions. Finally, we report three experiments that put our theoretical interpretation to the test and further propose how to adequately measure multimodal interactions in audiotactile detection tasks.

Recently introduced effective connectivity methods allow for the in-vivo investigation of large-scale functional interactions between brain regions. However, dynamic causal modeling, the most widely used technique to date, typically captures only a few predefined regions of interest. In this study, we present an alternative computational approach to infer effective connectivity within the entire connectome and show its performance on a developmental cohort with emerging language capacities. The novel approach provides new opportunities to quantify effective connectivity changes in the human brain. G.D. was supported by the ERC Advanced Grant DYSTRUCTURE (n. 295129), the Spanish Research Project PSI2013-42091-P and the FP7-ICT BrainScales (n. 269921). D.M. was supported by a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship of the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society (n. 101253/Z/13/Z), a Marie Curie Integration Grant of the European Commission (n. 2012-334039), the KU Leuven Special Research Fund (grant C16/15/070), and the Research Foundation Flanders (Pegasus incoming fellowship 12G9417N to MG). MG received funding from the FWO and European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie action (grant 665501). G.D., G.H and A.D. received support from the flagship Human Brain Project (n.604102). A.D was also supported by CNRS, UNIC, the foundation “Voir et Entendre” and Idex (NeuroSaclay). A.D.F. was funded by a grant from the European Research Council (ERC-2010-AdG 20100407, NEUROSYNTAX).

Graph theory constitutes a widely used and established field providing powerful tools for the characterization of complex networks. The intricate topology of networks can also be investigated by means of the collective dynamics observed in the interactions of self-sustained oscillations (synchronization patterns) or propagationlike processes such as random walks. However, networks are often inferred from real-data-forming dynamic systems, which are different from those employed to reveal their topological characteristics. This stresses the necessity for a theoretical framework dedicated to the mutual relationship between the structure and dynamics in complex networks, as the two sides of the same coin. Here we propose a rigorous framework based on the network response over time (i.e., Green function) to study interactions between nodes across time. For this purpose we define the flow that describes the interplay between the network connectivity and external inputs. This multivariate measure relates to the concepts of graph communicability and the map equation. We illustrate our theory using the multivariate Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, which describes stable and non-conservative dynamics, but the formalism can be adapted to other local dynamics for which the Green function is known. We provide applications to classical network examples, such as small-world ring and hierarchical networks. Our theory defines a comprehensive framework that is canonically related to directed and weighted networks, thus paving a way to revise the standards for network analysis, from the pairwise interactions between nodes to the global properties of networks including community detection. M.G. acknowledges funding from the Marie SkłodowskaCurie Action (Grant No. H2020-MSCA-656547) of the European Commission. G.Z.L., N.E.K., and G.D. acknowledge funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 720270 (HBP SGA1). G.D. also acknowledges funding from the European Research Council Advanced Grant DYSTRUCTURE (No. 295129) and the Spanish Research Project (No. PSI2013-42091-P). N.E.K. acknowledges support by the “MOVE-IN Louvain” fellowship cofunded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action of the European Commission.

Table of contents A1 Functional advantages of cell-type heterogeneity in neural circuits Tatyana O. Sharpee A2 Mesoscopic modeling of propagating waves in visual cortex Alain Destexhe A3 Dynamics and biomarkers of mental disorders Mitsuo Kawato F1 Precise recruitment of spiking output at theta frequencies requires dendritic h-channels in multi-compartment models of oriens-lacunosum/moleculare hippocampal interneurons Vladislav Sekulić, Frances K. Skinner F2 Kernel methods in reconstruction of current sources from extracellular potentials for single cells and the whole brains Daniel K. Wójcik, Chaitanya Chintaluri, Dorottya Cserpán, Zoltán Somogyvári F3 The synchronized periods depend on intracellular transcriptional repression mechanisms in circadian clocks. Jae Kyoung Kim, Zachary P. Kilpatrick, Matthew R. Bennett, Kresimir Josić O1 Assessing irregularity and coordination of spiking-bursting rhythms in central pattern generators Irene Elices, David Arroyo, Rafael Levi, Francisco B. Rodriguez, Pablo Varona O2 Regulation of top-down processing by cortically-projecting parvalbumin positive neurons in basal forebrain Eunjin Hwang, Bowon Kim, Hio-Been Han, Tae Kim, James T. McKenna, Ritchie E. Brown, Robert W. McCarley, Jee Hyun Choi O3 Modeling auditory stream segregation, build-up and bistability James Rankin, Pamela Osborn Popp, John Rinzel O4 Strong competition between tonotopic neural ensembles explains pitch-related dynamics of auditory cortex evoked fields Alejandro Tabas, André Rupp, Emili Balaguer-Ballester O5 A simple model of retinal response to multi-electrode stimulation Matias I. Maturana, David B. Grayden, Shaun L. Cloherty, Tatiana Kameneva, Michael R. Ibbotson, Hamish Meffin O6 Noise correlations in V4 area correlate with behavioral performance in visual discrimination task Veronika Koren, Timm Lochmann, Valentin Dragoi, Klaus Obermayer O7 Input-location dependent gain modulation in cerebellar nucleus neurons Maria Psarrou, Maria Schilstra, Neil Davey, Benjamin Torben-Nielsen, Volker Steuber O8 Analytic solution of cable energy function for cortical axons and dendrites Huiwen Ju, Jiao Yu, Michael L. Hines, Liang Chen, Yuguo Yu O9 C. elegans interactome: interactive visualization of Caenorhabditis elegans worm neuronal network Jimin Kim, Will Leahy, Eli Shlizerman O10 Is the model any good? Objective criteria for computational neuroscience model selection Justas Birgiolas, Richard C. Gerkin, Sharon M. Crook O11 Cooperation and competition of gamma oscillation mechanisms Atthaphon Viriyopase, Raoul-Martin Memmesheimer, Stan Gielen O12 A discrete structure of the brain waves Yuri Dabaghian, Justin DeVito, Luca Perotti O13 Direction-specific silencing of the Drosophila gaze stabilization system Anmo J. Kim, Lisa M. Fenk, Cheng Lyu, Gaby Maimon O14 What does the fruit fly think about values? A model of olfactory associative learning Chang Zhao, Yves Widmer, Simon Sprecher,Walter Senn O15 Effects of ionic diffusion on power spectra of local field potentials (LFP) Geir Halnes, Tuomo Mäki-Marttunen, Daniel Keller, Klas H. Pettersen,Ole A. Andreassen, Gaute T. Einevoll O16 Large-scale cortical models towards understanding relationship between brain structure abnormalities and cognitive deficits Yasunori Yamada O17 Spatial coarse-graining the brain: origin of minicolumns Moira L. Steyn-Ross, D. Alistair Steyn-Ross O18 Modeling large-scale cortical networks with laminar structure Jorge F. Mejias, John D. Murray, Henry Kennedy, Xiao-Jing Wang O19 Information filtering by partial synchronous spikes in a neural population Alexandra Kruscha, Jan Grewe, Jan Benda, Benjamin Lindner O20 Decoding context-dependent olfactory valence in Drosophila Laurent Badel, Kazumi Ohta, Yoshiko Tsuchimoto, Hokto Kazama P1 Neural network as a scale-free network: the role of a hub B. Kahng P2 Hemodynamic responses to emotions and decisions using near-infrared spectroscopy optical imaging Nicoladie D. Tam P3 Phase space analysis of hemodynamic responses to intentional movement directions using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) optical imaging technique Nicoladie D.Tam, Luca Pollonini, George Zouridakis P4 Modeling jamming avoidance of weakly electric fish Jaehyun Soh, DaeEun Kim P5 Synergy and redundancy of retinal ganglion cells in prediction Minsu Yoo, S. E. Palmer P6 A neural field model with a third dimension representing cortical depth Viviana Culmone, Ingo Bojak P7 Network analysis of a probabilistic connectivity model of the Xenopus tadpole spinal cord Andrea Ferrario, Robert Merrison-Hort, Roman Borisyuk P8 The recognition dynamics in the brain Chang Sub Kim P9 Multivariate spike train analysis using a positive definite kernel Taro Tezuka P10 Synchronization of burst periods may govern slow brain dynamics during general anesthesia Pangyu Joo P11 The ionic basis of heterogeneity affects stochastic synchrony Young-Ah Rho, Shawn D. Burton, G. Bard Ermentrout, Jaeseung Jeong, Nathaniel N. Urban P12 Circular statistics of noise in spike trains with a periodic component Petr Marsalek P14 Representations of directions in EEG-BCI using Gaussian readouts Hoon-Hee Kim, Seok-hyun Moon, Do-won Lee, Sung-beom Lee, Ji-yong Lee, Jaeseung Jeong P15 Action selection and reinforcement learning in basal ganglia during reaching movements Yaroslav I. Molkov, Khaldoun Hamade, Wondimu Teka, William H. Barnett, Taegyo Kim, Sergey Markin, Ilya A. Rybak P17 Axon guidance: modeling axonal growth in T-Junction assay Csaba Forro, Harald Dermutz, László Demkó, János Vörös P19 Transient cell assembly networks encode persistent spatial memories Yuri Dabaghian, Andrey Babichev P20 Theory of population coupling and applications to describe high order correlations in large populations of interacting neurons Haiping Huang P21 Design of biologically-realistic simulations for motor control Sergio Verduzco-Flores P22 Towards understanding the functional impact of the behavioural variability of neurons Filipa Dos Santos, Peter Andras P23 Different oscillatory dynamics underlying gamma entrainment deficits in schizophrenia Christoph Metzner, Achim Schweikard, Bartosz Zurowski P24 Memory recall and spike frequency adaptation James P. Roach, Leonard M. Sander, Michal R. Zochowski P25 Stability of neural networks and memory consolidation preferentially occur near criticality Quinton M. Skilling, Nicolette Ognjanovski, Sara J. Aton, Michal Zochowski P26 Stochastic Oscillation in Self-Organized Critical States of Small Systems: Sensitive Resting State in Neural Systems Sheng-Jun Wang, Guang Ouyang, Jing Guang, Mingsha Zhang, K. Y. Michael Wong, Changsong Zhou P27 Neurofield: a C++ library for fast simulation of 2D neural field models Peter A. Robinson, Paula Sanz-Leon, Peter M. Drysdale, Felix Fung, Romesh G. Abeysuriya, Chris J. Rennie, Xuelong Zhao P28 Action-based grounding: Beyond encoding/decoding in neural code Yoonsuck Choe, Huei-Fang Yang P29 Neural computation in a dynamical system with multiple time scales Yuanyuan Mi, Xiaohan Lin, Si Wu P30 Maximum entropy models for 3D layouts of orientation selectivity Joscha Liedtke, Manuel Schottdorf, Fred Wolf P31 A behavioral assay for probing computations underlying curiosity in rodents Yoriko Yamamura, Jeffery R. Wickens P32 Using statistical sampling to balance error function contributions to optimization of conductance-based models Timothy Rumbell, Julia Ramsey, Amy Reyes, Danel Draguljić, Patrick R. Hof, Jennifer Luebke, Christina M. Weaver P33 Exploration and implementation of a self-growing and self-organizing neuron network building algorithm Hu He, Xu Yang, Hailin Ma, Zhiheng Xu, Yuzhe Wang P34 Disrupted resting state brain network in obese subjects: a data-driven graph theory analysis Kwangyeol Baek, Laurel S. Morris, Prantik Kundu, Valerie Voon P35 Dynamics of cooperative excitatory and inhibitory plasticity Everton J. Agnes, Tim P. Vogels P36 Frequency-dependent oscillatory signal gating in feed-forward networks of integrate-and-fire neurons William F. Podlaski, Tim P. Vogels P37 Phenomenological neural model for adaptation of neurons in area IT Martin Giese, Pradeep Kuravi, Rufin Vogels P38 ICGenealogy: towards a common topology of neuronal ion channel function and genealogy in model and experiment Alexander Seeholzer, William Podlaski, Rajnish Ranjan, Tim Vogels P39 Temporal input discrimination from the interaction between dynamic synapses and neural subthreshold oscillations Joaquin J. Torres, Fabiano Baroni, Roberto Latorre, Pablo Varona P40 Different roles for transient and sustained activity during active visual processing Bart Gips, Eric Lowet, Mark J. Roberts, Peter de Weerd, Ole Jensen, Jan van der Eerden P41 Scale-free functional networks of 2D Ising model are highly robust against structural defects: neuroscience implications Abdorreza Goodarzinick, Mohammad D. Niry, Alireza Valizadeh P42 High frequency neuron can facilitate propagation of signal in neural networks Aref Pariz, Shervin S. Parsi, Alireza Valizadeh P43 Investigating the effect of Alzheimer’s disease related amyloidopathy on gamma oscillations in the CA1 region of the hippocampus Julia M. Warburton, Lucia Marucci, Francesco Tamagnini, Jon Brown, Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova P44 Long-tailed distributions of inhibitory and excitatory weights in a balanced network with eSTDP and iSTDP Florence I. Kleberg, Jochen Triesch P45 Simulation of EMG recording from hand muscle due to TMS of motor cortex Bahar Moezzi, Nicolangelo Iannella, Natalie Schaworonkow, Lukas Plogmacher, Mitchell R. Goldsworthy, Brenton Hordacre, Mark D. McDonnell, Michael C. Ridding, Jochen Triesch P46 Structure and dynamics of axon network formed in primary cell culture Martin Zapotocky, Daniel Smit, Coralie Fouquet, Alain Trembleau P47 Efficient signal processing and sampling in random networks that generate variability Sakyasingha Dasgupta, Isao Nishikawa, Kazuyuki Aihara, Taro Toyoizumi P48 Modeling the effect of riluzole on bursting in respiratory neural networks Daniel T. Robb, Nick Mellen, Natalia Toporikova P49 Mapping relaxation training using effective connectivity analysis Rongxiang Tang, Yi-Yuan Tang P50 Modeling neuron oscillation of implicit sequence learning Guangsheng Liang, Seth A. Kiser, James H. Howard, Jr., Yi-Yuan Tang P51 The role of cerebellar short-term synaptic plasticity in the pathology and medication of downbeat nystagmus Julia Goncharenko, Neil Davey, Maria Schilstra, Volker Steuber P52 Nonlinear response of noisy neurons Sergej O. Voronenko, Benjamin Lindner P53 Behavioral embedding suggests multiple chaotic dimensions underlie C. elegans locomotion Tosif Ahamed, Greg Stephens P54 Fast and scalable spike sorting for large and dense multi-electrodes recordings Pierre Yger, Baptiste Lefebvre, Giulia Lia Beatrice Spampinato, Elric Esposito, Marcel Stimberg et Olivier Marre P55 Sufficient sampling rates for fast hand motion tracking Hansol Choi, Min-Ho Song P56 Linear readout of object manifolds SueYeon Chung, Dan D. Lee, Haim Sompolinsky P57 Differentiating models of intrinsic bursting and rhythm generation of the respiratory pre-Bötzinger complex using phase response curves Ryan S. Phillips, Jeffrey Smith P58 The effect of inhibitory cell network interactions during theta rhythms on extracellular field potentials in CA1 hippocampus Alexandra Pierri Chatzikalymniou, Katie Ferguson, Frances K. Skinner P59 Expansion recoding through sparse sampling in the cerebellar input layer speeds learning N. Alex Cayco Gajic, Claudia Clopath, R. Angus Silver P60 A set of curated cortical models at multiple scales on Open Source Brain Padraig Gleeson, Boris Marin, Sadra Sadeh, Adrian Quintana, Matteo Cantarelli, Salvador Dura-Bernal, William W. Lytton, Andrew Davison, R. Angus Silver P61 A synaptic story of dynamical information encoding in neural adaptation Luozheng Li, Wenhao Zhang, Yuanyuan Mi, Dahui Wang, Si Wu P62 Physical modeling of rule-observant rodent behavior Youngjo Song, Sol Park, Ilhwan Choi, Jaeseung Jeong, Hee-sup Shin P64 Predictive coding in area V4 and prefrontal cortex explains dynamic discrimination of partially occluded shapes Hannah Choi, Anitha Pasupathy, Eric Shea-Brown P65 Stability of FORCE learning on spiking and rate-based networks Dongsung Huh, Terrence J. Sejnowski P66 Stabilising STDP in striatal neurons for reliable fast state recognition in noisy environments Simon M. Vogt, Arvind Kumar, Robert Schmidt P67 Electrodiffusion in one- and two-compartment neuron models for characterizing cellular effects of electrical stimulation Stephen Van Wert, Steven J. Schiff P68 STDP improves speech recognition capabilities in spiking recurrent circuits parameterized via differential evolution Markov Chain Monte Carlo Richard Veale, Matthias Scheutz P69 Bidirectional transformation between dominant cortical neural activities and phase difference distributions Sang Wan Lee P70 Maturation of sensory networks through homeostatic structural plasticity Júlia Gallinaro, Stefan Rotter P71 Corticothalamic dynamics: structure, number of solutions and stability of steady-state solutions in the space of synaptic couplings Paula Sanz-Leon, Peter A. Robinson P72 Optogenetic versus electrical stimulation of the parkinsonian basal ganglia. Computational study Leonid L. Rubchinsky, Chung Ching Cheung, Shivakeshavan Ratnadurai-Giridharan P73 Exact spike-timing distribution reveals higher-order interactions of neurons Safura Rashid Shomali, Majid Nili Ahmadabadi, Hideaki Shimazaki, S. Nader Rasuli P74 Neural mechanism of visual perceptual learning using a multi-layered neural network Xiaochen Zhao, Malte J. Rasch P75 Inferring collective spiking dynamics from mostly unobserved systems Jens Wilting, Viola Priesemann P76 How to infer distributions in the brain from subsampled observations Anna Levina, Viola Priesemann P77 Influences of embedding and estimation strategies on the inferred memory of single spiking neurons Lucas Rudelt, Joseph T. Lizier, Viola Priesemann P78 A nearest-neighbours based estimator for transfer entropy between spike trains Joseph T. Lizier, Richard E. Spinney, Mikail Rubinov, Michael Wibral, Viola Priesemann P79 Active learning of psychometric functions with multinomial logistic models Ji Hyun Bak, Jonathan Pillow P81 Inferring low-dimensional network dynamics with variational latent Gaussian process Yuan Zaho, Il Memming Park P82 Computational investigation of energy landscapes in the resting state subcortical brain network Jiyoung Kang, Hae-Jeong Park P83 Local repulsive interaction between retinal ganglion cells can generate a consistent spatial periodicity of orientation map Jaeson Jang, Se-Bum Paik P84 Phase duration of bistable perception reveals intrinsic time scale of perceptual decision under noisy condition Woochul Choi, Se-Bum Paik P85 Feedforward convergence between retina and primary visual cortex can determine the structure of orientation map Changju Lee, Jaeson Jang, Se-Bum Paik P86 Computational method classifying neural network activity patterns for imaging data Min Song, Hyeonsu Lee, Se-Bum Paik P87 Symmetry of spike-timing-dependent-plasticity kernels regulates volatility of memory Youngjin Park, Woochul Choi, Se-Bum Paik P88 Effects of time-periodic coupling strength on the first-spike latency dynamics of a scale-free network of stochastic Hodgkin-Huxley neurons Ergin Yilmaz, Veli Baysal, Mahmut Ozer P89 Spectral properties of spiking responses in V1 and V4 change within the trial and are highly relevant for behavioral performance Veronika Koren, Klaus Obermayer P90 Methods for building accurate models of individual neurons Daniel Saska, Thomas Nowotny P91 A full size mathematical model of the early olfactory system of honeybees Ho Ka Chan, Alan Diamond, Thomas Nowotny P92 Stimulation-induced tuning of ongoing oscillations in spiking neural networks Christoph S. Herrmann, Micah M. Murray, Silvio Ionta, Axel Hutt, Jérémie Lefebvre P93 Decision-specific sequences of neural activity in balanced random networks driven by structured sensory input Philipp Weidel, Renato Duarte, Abigail Morrison P94 Modulation of tuning induced by abrupt reduction of SST cell activity Jung H. Lee, Ramakrishnan Iyer, Stefan Mihalas P95 The functional role of VIP cell activation during locomotion Jung H. Lee, Ramakrishnan Iyer, Christof Koch, Stefan Mihalas P96 Stochastic inference with spiking neural networks Mihai A. Petrovici, Luziwei Leng, Oliver Breitwieser, David Stöckel, Ilja Bytschok, Roman Martel, Johannes Bill, Johannes Schemmel, Karlheinz Meier P97 Modeling orientation-selective electrical stimulation with retinal prostheses Timothy B. Esler, Anthony N. Burkitt, David B. Grayden, Robert R. Kerr, Bahman Tahayori, Hamish Meffin P98 Ion channel noise can explain firing correlation in auditory nerves Bahar Moezzi, Nicolangelo Iannella, Mark D. McDonnell P99 Limits of temporal encoding of thalamocortical inputs in a neocortical microcircuit Max Nolte, Michael W. Reimann, Eilif Muller, Henry Markram P100 On the representation of arm reaching movements: a computational model Antonio Parziale, Rosa Senatore, Angelo Marcelli P101 A computational model for investigating the role of cerebellum in acquisition and retention of motor behavior Rosa Senatore, Antonio Parziale, Angelo Marcelli P102 The emergence of semantic categories from a large-scale brain network of semantic knowledge K. Skiker, M. Maouene P103 Multiscale modeling of M1 multitarget pharmacotherapy for dystonia Samuel A. Neymotin, Salvador Dura-Bernal, Alexandra Seidenstein, Peter Lakatos, Terence D. Sanger, William W. Lytton P104 Effect of network size on computational capacity Salvador Dura-Bernal, Rosemary J. Menzies, Campbell McLauchlan, Sacha J. van Albada, David J. Kedziora, Samuel Neymotin, William W. Lytton, Cliff C. Kerr P105 NetPyNE: a Python package for NEURON to facilitate development and parallel simulation of biological neuronal networks Salvador Dura-Bernal, Benjamin A. Suter, Samuel A. Neymotin, Cliff C. Kerr, Adrian Quintana, Padraig Gleeson, Gordon M. G. Shepherd, William W. Lytton P107 Inter-areal and inter-regional inhomogeneity in co-axial anisotropy of Cortical Point Spread in human visual areas Juhyoung Ryu, Sang-Hun Lee P108 Two bayesian quanta of uncertainty explain the temporal dynamics of cortical activity in the non-sensory areas during bistable perception Joonwon Lee, Sang-Hun Lee P109 Optimal and suboptimal integration of sensory and value information in perceptual decision making Hyang Jung Lee, Sang-Hun Lee P110 A Bayesian algorithm for phoneme Perception and its neural implementation Daeseob Lim, Sang-Hun Lee P111 Complexity of EEG signals is reduced during unconsciousness induced by ketamine and propofol Jisung Wang, Heonsoo Lee P112 Self-organized criticality of neural avalanche in a neural model on complex networks Nam Jung, Le Anh Quang, Seung Eun Maeng, Tae Ho Lee, Jae Woo Lee P113 Dynamic alterations in connection topology of the hippocampal network during ictal-like epileptiform activity in an in vitro rat model Chang-hyun Park, Sora Ahn, Jangsup Moon, Yun Seo Choi, Juhee Kim, Sang Beom Jun, Seungjun Lee, Hyang Woon Lee P114 Computational model to replicate seizure suppression effect by electrical stimulation Sora Ahn, Sumin Jo, Eunji Jun, Suin Yu, Hyang Woon Lee, Sang Beom Jun, Seungjun Lee P115 Identifying excitatory and inhibitory synapses in neuronal networks from spike trains using sorted local transfer entropy Felix Goetze, Pik-Yin Lai P116 Neural network model for obstacle avoidance based on neuromorphic computational model of boundary vector cell and head direction cell Seonghyun Kim, Jeehyun Kwag P117 Dynamic gating of spike pattern propagation by Hebbian and anti-Hebbian spike timing-dependent plasticity in excitatory feedforward network model Hyun Jae Jang, Jeehyun Kwag P118 Inferring characteristics of input correlations of cells exhibiting up-down state transitions in the rat striatum Marko Filipović, Ramon Reig, Ad Aertsen, Gilad Silberberg, Arvind Kumar P119 Graph properties of the functional connected brain under the influence of Alzheimer’s disease Claudia Bachmann, Simone Buttler, Heidi Jacobs, Kim Dillen, Gereon R. Fink, Juraj Kukolja, Abigail Morrison P120 Learning sparse representations in the olfactory bulb Daniel Kepple, Hamza Giaffar, Dima Rinberg, Steven Shea, Alex Koulakov P121 Functional classification of homologous basal-ganglia networks Jyotika Bahuguna,Tom Tetzlaff, Abigail Morrison, Arvind Kumar, Jeanette Hellgren Kotaleski P122 Short term memory based on multistability Tim Kunze, Andre Peterson, Thomas Knösche P123 A physiologically plausible, computationally efficient model and simulation software for mammalian motor units Minjung Kim, Hojeong Kim P125 Decoding laser-induced somatosensory information from EEG Ji Sung Park, Ji Won Yeon, Sung-Phil Kim P126 Phase synchronization of alpha activity for EEG-based personal authentication Jae-Hwan Kang, Chungho Lee, Sung-Phil Kim P129 Investigating phase-lags in sEEG data using spatially distributed time delays in a large-scale brain network model Andreas Spiegler, Spase Petkoski, Matias J. Palva, Viktor K. Jirsa P130 Epileptic seizures in the unfolding of a codimension-3 singularity Maria L. Saggio, Silvan F. Siep, Andreas Spiegler, William C. Stacey, Christophe Bernard, Viktor K. Jirsa P131 Incremental dimensional exploratory reasoning under multi-dimensional environment Oh-hyeon Choung, Yong Jeong P132 A low-cost model of eye movements and memory in personal visual cognition Yong-il Lee, Jaeseung Jeong P133 Complex network analysis of structural connectome of autism spectrum disorder patients Su Hyun Kim, Mir Jeong, Jaeseung Jeong P134 Cognitive motives and the neural correlates underlying human social information transmission, gossip Jeungmin Lee, Jaehyung Kwon, Jerald D. Kralik, Jaeseung Jeong P135 EEG hyperscanning detects neural oscillation for the social interaction during the economic decision-making Jaehwan Jahng, Dong-Uk Hwang, Jaeseung Jeong P136 Detecting purchase decision based on hyperfrontality of the EEG Jae-Hyung Kwon, Sang-Min Park, Jaeseung Jeong P137 Vulnerability-based critical neurons, synapses, and pathways in the Caenorhabditis elegans connectome Seongkyun Kim, Hyoungkyu Kim, Jerald D. Kralik, Jaeseung Jeong P138 Motif analysis reveals functionally asymmetrical neurons in C. elegans Pyeong Soo Kim, Seongkyun Kim, Hyoungkyu Kim, Jaeseung Jeong P139 Computational approach to preference-based serial decision dynamics: do temporal discounting and working memory affect it? Sangsup Yoon, Jaehyung Kwon, Sewoong Lim, Jaeseung Jeong P141 Social stress induced neural network reconfiguration affects decision making and learning in zebrafish Choongseok Park, Thomas Miller, Katie Clements, Sungwoo Ahn, Eoon Hye Ji, Fadi A. Issa P142 Descriptive, generative, and hybrid approaches for neural connectivity inference from neural activity data JeongHun Baek, Shigeyuki Oba, Junichiro Yoshimoto, Kenji Doya, Shin Ishii P145 Divergent-convergent synaptic connectivities accelerate coding in multilayered sensory systems Thiago S. Mosqueiro, Martin F. Strube-Bloss, Brian Smith, Ramon Huerta P146 Swinging networks Michal Hadrava, Jaroslav Hlinka P147 Inferring dynamically relevant motifs from oscillatory stimuli: challenges, pitfalls, and solutions Hannah Bos, Moritz Helias P148 Spatiotemporal mapping of brain network dynamics during cognitive tasks using magnetoencephalography and deep learning Charles M. Welzig, Zachary J. Harper P149 Multiscale complexity analysis for the segmentation of MRI images Won Sup Kim, In-Seob Shin, Hyeon-Man Baek, Seung Kee Han P150 A neuro-computational model of emotional attention René Richter, Julien Vitay, Frederick Beuth, Fred H. Hamker P151 Multi-site delayed feedback stimulation in parkinsonian networks Kelly Toppin, Yixin Guo P152 Bistability in Hodgkin–Huxley-type equations Tatiana Kameneva, Hamish Meffin, Anthony N. Burkitt, David B. Grayden P153 Phase changes in postsynaptic spiking due to synaptic connectivity and short term plasticity: mathematical analysis of frequency dependency Mark D. McDonnell, Bruce P. Graham P154 Quantifying resilience patterns in brain networks: the importance of directionality Penelope J. Kale, Leonardo L. Gollo P155 Dynamics of rate-model networks with separate excitatory and inhibitory populations Merav Stern, L. F. Abbott P156 A model for multi-stable dynamics in action recognition modulated by integration of silhouette and shading cues Leonid A. Fedorov, Martin A. Giese P157 Spiking model for the interaction between action recognition and action execution Mohammad Hovaidi Ardestani, Martin Giese P158 Surprise-modulated belief update: how to learn within changing environments? Mohammad Javad Faraji, Kerstin Preuschoff, Wulfram Gerstner P159 A fast, stochastic and adaptive model of auditory nerve responses to cochlear implant stimulation Margriet J. van Gendt, Jeroen J. Briaire, Randy K. Kalkman, Johan H. M. Frijns P160 Quantitative comparison of graph theoretical measures of simulated and empirical functional brain networks Won Hee Lee, Sophia Frangou P161 Determining discriminative properties of fMRI signals in schizophrenia using highly comparative time-series analysis Ben D. Fulcher, Patricia H. P. Tran, Alex Fornito P162 Emergence of narrowband LFP oscillations from completely asynchronous activity during seizures and high-frequency oscillations Stephen V. Gliske, William C. Stacey, Eugene Lim, Katherine A. Holman, Christian G. Fink P163 Neuronal diversity in structure and function: cross-validation of anatomical and physiological classification of retinal ganglion cells in the mouse Jinseop S. Kim, Shang Mu, Kevin L. Briggman, H. Sebastian Seung, the EyeWirers P164 Analysis and modelling of transient firing rate changes in area MT in response to rapid stimulus feature changes Detlef Wegener, Lisa Bohnenkamp, Udo A. Ernst P165 Step-wise model fitting accounting for high-resolution spatial measurements: construction of a layer V pyramidal cell model with reduced morphology Tuomo Mäki-Marttunen, Geir Halnes, Anna Devor, Christoph Metzner, Anders M. Dale, Ole A. Andreassen, Gaute T. Einevoll P166 Contributions of schizophrenia-associated genes to neuron firing and cardiac pacemaking: a polygenic modeling approach Tuomo Mäki-Marttunen, Glenn T. Lines, Andy Edwards, Aslak Tveito, Anders M. Dale, Gaute T. Einevoll, Ole A. Andreassen P167 Local field potentials in a 4 × 4 mm2 multi-layered network model Espen Hagen, Johanna Senk, Sacha J. van Albada, Markus Diesmann P168 A spiking network model explains multi-scale properties of cortical dynamics Maximilian Schmidt, Rembrandt Bakker, Kelly Shen, Gleb Bezgin, Claus-Christian Hilgetag, Markus Diesmann, Sacha Jennifer van Albada P169 Using joint weight-delay spike-timing dependent plasticity to find polychronous neuronal groups Haoqi Sun, Olga Sourina, Guang-Bin Huang, Felix Klanner, Cornelia Denk P170 Tensor decomposition reveals RSNs in simulated resting state fMRI Katharina Glomb, Adrián Ponce-Alvarez, Matthieu Gilson, Petra Ritter, Gustavo Deco P171 Getting in the groove: testing a new model-based method for comparing task-evoked vs resting-state activity in fMRI data on music listening Matthieu Gilson, Maria AG Witek, Eric F. Clarke, Mads Hansen, Mikkel Wallentin, Gustavo Deco, Morten L. Kringelbach, Peter Vuust P172 STochastic engine for pathway simulation (STEPS) on massively parallel processors Guido Klingbeil, Erik De Schutter P173 Toolkit support for complex parallel spatial stochastic reaction–diffusion simulation in STEPS Weiliang Chen, Erik De Schutter P174 Modeling the generation and propagation of Purkinje cell dendritic spikes caused by parallel fiber synaptic input Yunliang Zang, Erik De Schutter P175 Dendritic morphology determines how dendrites are organized into functional subunits Sungho Hong, Akira Takashima, Erik De Schutter P176 A model of Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II activity in long term depression at Purkinje cells Criseida Zamora, Andrew R. Gallimore, Erik De Schutter P177 Reward-modulated learning of population-encoded vectors for insect-like navigation in embodied agents Dennis Goldschmidt, Poramate Manoonpong, Sakyasingha Dasgupta P178 Data-driven neural models part II: connectivity patterns of human seizures Philippa J. Karoly, Dean R. Freestone, Daniel Soundry, Levin Kuhlmann, Liam Paninski, Mark Cook P179 Data-driven neural models part I: state and parameter estimation Dean R. Freestone, Philippa J. Karoly, Daniel Soundry, Levin Kuhlmann, Mark Cook P180 Spectral and spatial information processing in human auditory streaming Jaejin Lee, Yonatan I. Fishman, Yale E. Cohen P181 A tuning curve for the global effects of local perturbations in neural activity: Mapping the systems-level susceptibility of the brain Leonardo L. Gollo, James A. Roberts, Luca Cocchi P182 Diverse homeostatic responses to visual deprivation mediated by neural ensembles Yann Sweeney, Claudia Clopath P183 Opto-EEG: a novel method for investigating functional connectome in mouse brain based on optogenetics and high density electroencephalography Soohyun Lee, Woo-Sung Jung, Jee Hyun Choi P184 Biphasic responses of frontal gamma network to repetitive sleep deprivation during REM sleep Bowon Kim, Youngsoo Kim, Eunjin Hwang, Jee Hyun Choi P185 Brain-state correlate and cortical connectivity for frontal gamma oscillations in top-down fashion assessed by auditory steady-state response Younginha Jung, Eunjin Hwang, Yoon-Kyu Song, Jee Hyun Choi P186 Neural field model of localized orientation selective activation in V1 James Rankin, Frédéric Chavane P187 An oscillatory network model of Head direction and Grid cells using locomotor inputs Karthik Soman, Vignesh Muralidharan, V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy P188 A computational model of hippocampus inspired by the functional architecture of basal ganglia Karthik Soman, Vignesh Muralidharan, V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy P189 A computational architecture to model the microanatomy of the striatum and its functional properties Sabyasachi Shivkumar, Vignesh Muralidharan, V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy P190 A scalable cortico-basal ganglia model to understand the neural dynamics of targeted reaching Vignesh Muralidharan, Alekhya Mandali, B. Pragathi Priyadharsini, Hima Mehta, V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy P191 Emergence of radial orientation selectivity from synaptic plasticity Catherine E. Davey, David B. Grayden, Anthony N. Burkitt P192 How do hidden units shape effective connections between neurons? Braden A. W. Brinkman, Tyler Kekona, Fred Rieke, Eric Shea-Brown, Michael Buice P193 Characterization of neural firing in the presence of astrocyte-synapse signaling Maurizio De Pittà, Hugues Berry, Nicolas Brunel P194 Metastability of spatiotemporal patterns in a large-scale network model of brain dynamics James A. Roberts, Leonardo L. Gollo, Michael Breakspear P195 Comparison of three methods to quantify detection and discrimination capacity estimated from neural population recordings Gary Marsat, Jordan Drew, Phillip D. Chapman, Kevin C. Daly, Samual P. Bradley P196 Quantifying the constraints for independent evoked and spontaneous NMDA receptor mediated synaptic transmission at individual synapses Sat Byul Seo, Jianzhong Su, Ege T. Kavalali, Justin Blackwell P199 Gamma oscillation via adaptive exponential integrate-and-fire neurons LieJune Shiau, Laure Buhry, Kanishka Basnayake P200 Visual face representations during memory retrieval compared to perception Sue-Hyun Lee, Brandon A. Levy, Chris I. Baker P201 Top-down modulation of sequential activity within packets modeled using avalanche dynamics Timothée Leleu, Kazuyuki Aihara Q28 An auto-encoder network realizes sparse features under the influence of desynchronized vascular dynamics Ryan T. Philips, Karishma Chhabria, V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy

The brain exhibits complex spatio-temporal patterns of activity. This phenomenon is governed by an interplay between the internal neural dynamics of cortical areas and their connectivity. Uncovering this complex relationship has raised much interest, both for theory and the interpretation of experimental data (e.g., fMRI recordings) using dynamical models. Here we focus on the so-called inverse problem: the inference of network parameters in a cortical model to reproduce empirically observed activity. Although it has received a lot of interest, recovering directed connectivity for large networks has been rather unsuccessful so far. The present study specifically addresses this point for a noise-diffusion network model. We develop a Lyapunov optimization that iteratively tunes the network connectivity in order to reproduce second-order moments of the node activity, or functional connectivity. We show theoretically and numerically that the use of covariances with both zero and non-zero time shifts is the key to infer directed connectivity. The first main theoretical finding is that an accurate estimation of the underlying network connectivity requires that the time shift for covariances is matched with the time constant of the dynamical system. In addition to the network connectivity, we also adjust the intrinsic noise received by each network node. The framework is applied to experimental fMRI data recorded for subjects at rest. Diffusion-weighted MRI data provide an estimate of anatomical connections, which is incorporated to constrain the cortical model. The empirical covariance structure is reproduced faithfully, especially its temporal component (i.e., time-shifted covariances) in addition to the spatial component that is usually the focus of studies. We find that the cortical interactions, referred to as effective connectivity, in the tuned model are not reciprocal. In particular, hubs are either receptors or feeders: they do not exhibit both strong incoming and outgoing connections. Our results sets a quantitative ground to explore the propagation of activity in the cortex., Author Summary The study of interactions between different cortical regions at rest or during a task has considerably developed in the past decades thanks to progress in non-invasive imaging techniques, such as fMRI, EEG and MEG. These techniques have revealed that distant cortical areas exhibit specific correlated activity during the resting state, also called functional connectivity (FC). Moreover, recent studies have highlighted the possible role of white-matter projections between cortical regions in shaping these activity patterns. This structural connectivity (SC) can be estimated using MRI, which measures the probability for two areas to be connected via the density of neural fibers. However, this does not provide the strengths of dynamical interactions. Many methods have thus been developed to estimate the connectivity between neural populations in the cortex that is hypothesized to shape FC. The strengths of these dynamical interactions are called effective connectivity (EC). We use a cortical model that combines information from Diffusion-weighted MRI (dwMRI) and fMRI in order to estimate EC. We demonstrate theoretically that directed C can be inferred using time-shifted covariances. The key point of our method is the use of temporal information from FC at the scale of the whole network. Applying our model on experimental fMRI data at rest, we estimate the asymmetry of intracortical connectivity. Obtaining an accurate EC estimate is essential to analyze its graph properties, such as hubs. In particular, directed connectivity links to the asymmetry between input and output EC strengths of each node, which characterizes feeder and receiver hubs in the cortical network.

A precise definition of a brain state has proven elusive. Here, we introduce the novel local-global concept of intrinsic ignition characterizing the dynamical complexity of different brain states. Naturally occurring intrinsic ignition events reflect the capability of a given brain area to propagate neuronal activity to other regions, giving rise to different levels of integration. The ignitory capability of brain regions is computed by the elicited level of integration for each intrinsic ignition event in each brain region, averaged over all events. This intrinsic ignition method is shown to clearly distinguish human neuroimaging data of two fundamental brain states (wakefulness and deep sleep). Importantly, whole-brain computational modelling of this data shows that at the optimal working point is found where there is maximal variability of the intrinsic ignition across brain regions. Thus, combining whole brain models with intrinsic ignition can provide novel insights into underlying mechanisms of brain states. Fil: Deco, Gustavo. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; España Fil: Tagliazucchi, Enzo Rodolfo. Goethe Universitat Frankfurt; Alemania. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires; Argentina Fil: Laufs, Helmut. Goethe Universitat Frankfurt; Alemania Fil: Sanjuán, Ana. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; España Fil: Kringelbach, Morten L.. University of Oxford; Reino Unido. Institut D?études Avancées de Paris; . University Aarhus; Dinamarca

OBJECTIVE: We introduce a method that quantifies the consistent involvement of intracranially monitored regions in recurrent focal seizures. METHODS: We evaluated the consistency of two ictal spectral activation patterns (mean power change and power change onset time) in intracranial recordings across focal seizures from seven patients with clinically marked seizure onset zone (SOZ). We examined SOZ discrimination using both patterns in different frequency bands and periods of interest. RESULTS: Activation patterns were proved to be consistent across more than 80% of recurrent ictal epochs. In all patients, whole-seizure mean activations were significantly higher for SOZ than non-SOZ regions (P

Human short term memory has a capacity of several items maintained simultaneously. We show how the number of short term memory representations that an attractor network modeling a cortical local network can simultaneously maintain active is increased by using synaptic facilitation of the type found in the prefrontal cortex. We have been able to maintain 9 short term memories active simultaneously in integrate-and-fire simulations where the proportion of neurons in each population, the sparseness, is 0.1, and have confirmed the stability of such a system with mean field analyses. Without synaptic facilitation the system can maintain many fewer memories active in the same network. The system operates because of the effectively increased synaptic strengths formed by the synaptic facilitation just for those pools to which the cue is applied, and then maintenance of this synaptic facilitation in just those pools when the cue is removed by the continuing neuronal firing in those pools. The findings have implications for understanding how several items can be maintained simultaneously in short term memory, how this may be relevant to the implementation of language in the brain, and suggest new approaches to understanding and treating the decline in short term memory that can occur with normal aging. This work was supported by the Spanish Research Projects BFU2007-61710, CONSOLIDER CSD2007-00012; the Oxford McDonnell Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience; the Oxford Centre for Computational Neuroscience; MIDECO through the Ramon y Cajal Programme (LDM); and from the TIN2010-21771-C02-02 project (LDM). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

A popular way to analyze resting-state electroencephalography (EEG) and magneto encephalography (MEG) data is to treat them as a functional network in which sensors are identified with nodes and the interaction between channel time series and the network connections. Although conceptually appealing, the network-theoretical approach to sensor-level EEG and MEG data is challenged by the fact that EEG and MEG time series are mixtures of source activity. It is, therefore, of interest to assess the relationship between functional networks of source activity and the ensuing sensor-level networks. Since these topological features are of high interest in experimental studies, we address the question of to what extent the network topology can be reconstructed from sensor-level functional connectivity (FC) measures in case of MEG data. Simple simulations that consider only a small number of regions do not allow to assess network properties; therefore, we use a diffusion magnetic resonance imaging-constrained whole-brain computational model of resting-state activity. Our motivation lies behind the fact that still many contributions found in the literature perform network analysis at sensor level, and we aim at showing the discrepancies between source- and sensor-level network topologies by using realistic simulations of resting-state cortical activity. Our main findings are that the effect of field spread on network topology depends on the type of interaction (instantaneous or lagged) and leads to an underestimation of lagged FC at sensor level due to instantaneous mixing of cortical signals, instantaneous interaction is more sensitive to field spread than lagged interaction, and discrepancies are reduced when using planar gradiometers rather than axial gradiometers. We, therefore, recommend using lagged interaction measures on planar gradiometer data when investigating network properties of resting-state sensor-level MEG data. R. Hindriks and G. Deco were funded by the European Research Council (Advanced Grant DYSTRUCTURE No.295129), the Spanish Research Project PSI2013-42091-P, the CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 Program CSD2007-00012, and the FP7-ICT Brainscales (269921).

The uncertain option task has been recently adopted to investigate the neural systems underlying the decision confidence. Latterly single neurons activity has been recorded in lateral intraparietal cortex of monkeys performing an uncertain option task, where the subject is allowed to opt for a small but sure reward instead of making a risky perceptual decision. We propose a multiple choice model implemented in a discrete attractors network. This model is able to reproduce both behavioral and neurophysiological experimental data and therefore provides support to the numerous perspectives that interpret the uncertain option task as a sensory-motor association. The model explains the behavioral and neural data recorded in monkeys as the result of the multistable attractor landscape and produces several testable predictions. One of these predictions may help distinguish our model from a recently proposed continuous attractor model., Author Summary Recently many studies began to investigate the brain signature of complex cognitive functions such as decision confidence, the feeling of certainty/uncertainty associated with a decision. To this aim, the uncertain option task has been widely adopted in order to assess the confidence in animals. In this study we present a model, detailed at the neuron and synapse level, able to account for the behavior of animals in this task. In addition our model is able to reproduce the neural dynamics found in monkeys brain during this task. However our model is only equipped with a simple multiple choice mechanism and has no mechanism devoted to calculate the confidence. Therefore our study support the idea that the uncertain option task can be solved without relying on confidence assessment (metacognition). The model is based on the idea that the neural dynamics fluctuates around stable equilibrium points (attractors) and associates the landscape of these attractors with the behavior of the monkeys. Finally, our model makes several predictions that could be easily tested in a new experiment. One of these predictions may help distinguish our model from a different one that has been recently proposed.

Recent single-cell studies in monkeys (Romo et al., 2004) show that the activity of neurons in the ventral premotor cortex covaries with the animal's decisions in a perceptual comparison task regarding the frequency of vibrotactile events. The firing rate response of these neurons was dependent only on the frequency differences between the two applied vibrations, the sign of that difference being the determining factor for correct task performance. We present a biophysically realistic neurodynamical model that can account for the most relevant characteristics of this decision-making-related neural activity. One of the nontrivial predictions of this model is that Weber's law will underlie the perceptual discrimination behavior. We confirmed this prediction in behavioral tests of vibrotactile discrimination in humans and propose a computational explanation of perceptual discrimination that accounts naturally for the emergence of Weber's law. We conclude that the neurodynamical mechanisms and computational principles underlying the decision-making processes in this perceptual discrimination task are consistent with a fluctuation-driven scenario in a multistable regime.

Resting-state networks (RSNs), which have become a main focus in neuroimaging research, can be best simulated by large-scale cortical models in which networks teeter on the edge of instability. In this state, the functional networks are in a low firing stable state while they are continuously pulled towards multiple other configurations. Small extrinsic perturbations can shape task-related network dynamics, whereas perturbations from intrinsic noise generate excursions reflecting the range of available functional networks. This is particularly advantageous for the efficiency and speed of network mobilization. Thus, the resting state reflects the dynamical capabilities of the brain, which emphasizes the vital interplay of time and space. In this article, we propose a new theoretical framework for RSNs that can serve as a fertile ground for empirical testing.

The activity of the brain exhibits stereotypical patterns at various temporal and spatial scales. Novel techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allow the simultaneous recording of the macroscopic activity from all brain regions while subjects perform various tasks, such as passive hearing and active visual recognition. How neural activity is related to cognitive tasks is a long-standing question for the neuroscience community. This study examines an interesting aspect of this broad question, namely the comparison between the resting state (when the subjects is idle) and evoked activity during a task. Neural activity patterns consist of the correlations of firing activity between cortical regions - or functional connectivity - at a slow time scale (hundreds of ms), which can be related to data obtained from fMRI. The cortex has an intricate architecture of connections, both local and long-range. The latter have been mapped for the whole human cortex using diffusion techniques [1]. A recent model has demonstrated that this broad-scale structural connectivity is crucial to reproduce resting-state patterns of cortical activity [2]. Here we consider the same model and simulate tasks by exciting specific brain regions. We rely on mathematical and numerical analysis in order to uncover the respective roles of the long-range projections and external inputs in shaping the evoked activity. Our primary aim is to understand how the stimulation of specific brain regions can dramatically modify the functional connectivity, as compared to the resting state. We also examine the influence of long-range excitatory projections onto inhibitory populations, a novel dynamical ingredient compared to the previous model, in decorrelating brain regions.

Perceptual discrimination may be interpreted as a decision between alternatives based on available sensory evidence. In many experiments, the different alternatives are encoded by quite distinct neuronal groups. In this case, proposed neural models consider that the decision results from the competition between decision-specific neuronal groups, each of these integrating distinct sensory evidence [1]. Alternatively, evidence may be presented in a sequential manner, and the different stimuli may be encoded by the same neuronal group, as exemplified by experiments where monkeys are engaged in a vibrotactile discrimination task [2]. To achieve discrimination in this case, the nervous system needs to keep a trace of the previously presented stimuli. How the correct discrimination can be learned and implemented is poorly understood. To address these questions, we use a modeling approach. We concentrate on the particular case of the vibrotactile discrimination task on which experimental insight has been accumulated over the last years [2]. The partial differential (PD) neurons in monkey area VPC, encoding both sequentially presented vibrotactile stimuli (with frequencies f1 and f2) by keeping the memory of the first one during a delay period, have been reproduced in a spiking neuron network model with short-term facilitating synapses [3]. We want to explore how these PD neurons may be used to discriminate between both stimuli configurations: f1 > f2 or f1 < f2. Based on the experimental evidence, we model a heterogeneous PD neuronal population, encoding both frequencies in multiple ways. Downstream to the first network, we add a competition-based decision making spiking neuron network [1]. To obtain the desired neural dynamics of the coupled two-networks model, we choose the model parameters using a simplified mean-field description of the model. To make the best possible decisions, the strengths of the synapses projecting from the PD neurons to the decision neurons must be learned. Based on reinforcement learning theory, we use a learning rule which maximizes reward. It depends on a reward prediction error, evaluated using the reward history. We instantiate this rule using a reward based spike-timing-dependent plasticity [4]. Learning takes place after the second stimulus presentation. We find that the task can be efficiently learned for any number of PD neuron types, even when their stimulus encoding function is nonlinear and noisy. In conclusion, the present biologically plausible two-networks model is able to solve a perceptual discrimination task under sequential sensory evidence.

The brain exhibits complex spatio-temporal patterns of activity. In particular, its baseline neural activity for idle subjects or animals has a specific structure, also called functional connectivity (FC): cortical areas experience correlated fluctuations at rest as revealed by imaging techniques (e.g., fMRI, EEG and MEG). Moreover, these correlation patterns become more expressed or suppressed depending on the engaged task. The putative function for this stereotypical background activity has been actively questioned by the neuroscience community. A Bayesian hypothesis is that it reflects the variety of possible coactivations of cortical areas for usual tasks, forming a prior representation of the environment and interactions wherewith. The present study relies on our recently developed model [1] in which noise diffusion is constrained by intracortical white-matter projections to reproduce FC observed in experimental data (fMRI BOLD signal). In this model, noise has a functional role and represents the variability of neural activity during tasks. This model allows us to explore the role of various parameters in shaping FC, such as the local nonlinear dynamics of cortical areas. More importantly, we can infer the efficacies of intracortical projections, also called effective connectivity (EC), from experimental data. EC plays a crucial role in shaping FC and differs from the structural connectivity (SC) that is typically obtained using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which estimates the density of white-matter fibers. It is important to notice that the efficacies of these fibers may differ from their density, due to the concentration of synapses formed at their end, the type of neurotransmitters associated and the excitability of target neural populations. In the end, our model combines anatomical SC and activity FC to evaluate what drives the neural dynamics, embodied in EC. Practically, directed EC can be estimated using two matrices of empirical FC, namely FC0 for correlations with zero time shift and FCτ for correlations with a given time shift τ>0. We apply our method to infer the intracortical EC from experimental fMRI data that consists of ~20 minutes of recording for 25 idle subjects. The model reproduces both empirical FC0 and FCτ matrices with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.65. The recovered EC connectivity is significantly asymmetric, with a value of 0.3 for an index that scales from 0 for symmetric matrices to 1 for asymmetric matrices. Moreover, EC exhibits hubs that have either strong incoming or outgoing weights, but not both. This disassortative property is expected to exert a strong influence in shaping the whole network dynamics.

The perceptual decision making process may involve a comparison between several stimuli occurring either simultaneously or successively. Depending on environmental demands, the response is given immediately or is delayed. A well-known paradigm for research in decision making is the comparison of two vibrotactile stimuli (f1, f2) applied to the fingertips with a fixed delay period between them. To complete this cognitive task the subject needs to store the information about the first stimulus, f1, in working memory and to compare it with the second one, f2, to make a decision of whether f1 f2. Further he needs to store in working memory its appropriate response. Along those lines, Lemus et al. (2) introduced an additional delay between the second stimulus and the subject's response. This new operation requires that the subject stores the somatosensory information, the decision and/or the response in working memory during this second delay period. We analysed neurons recorded from the Medial Premotor Cortex in monkeys during the above task. We found some neurons encoded the response just in two periods: after the second stimulus (f2) and when the answer is required, 3 s later. Moreover, those neurons only show relevant activity in these periods. In the present work we investigated the mechanisms that allow the neurons to encode the response information. For this purpose we use Mutual Information (MI) analysis in order to decode the information carried by the firing rates. We measured the MI between the following two variables: the firing rates and the behavioral response (f1 f2) made at the end of the trial. We found that for 157 neurons (18.1% of 867), the MI becomes significant during the second stimulus (f2), it disappears during the post-f2 period, and becomes significant again at the time of the response. Our hypothesis is that this particular pattern is due to a combination of signal-to-noise ratio in the rates, which makes it impossible to decode the information contained in the rates in the postponed response delay period after f2. We hypothesize that the neurons can use synaptic facilitation to allows them to hold the information during the delayed response memory period. Here, we present a biophysically realistic model for decision making with synaptic facilitation (3) extended to account for the activity in the delayed response period. We use integrate-and-fire neurons with three types of receptors mediating the synaptic currents: the excitatory recurrent postsynaptic currents are mediated by AMPA (fast) and NMDA (slow) receptors and the inhibitory recurrent postsynaptic currents to both excitatory and inhibitory neurons are mediated by GABA receptors. The external excitatory recurrent postsynaptic currents injected onto the network are driven only by AMPA receptors. The results show that the network is able to model this neuronal activity using a synaptic facilitation mechanism. After a decision making period the network is able to remember the response despite a low firing level in the delayed response period and to retrieve the memory evident in a high firing rate when a non-specific stimulus is provided just before the response is required. Thus a synaptic facilitation mechanism can implement a mechanism for postponed decisions which can be correct even when there is little neuronal firing during the delay period before the postponed decision.

Dynamic patterns of brain activity at rest distinguish conscious and unconscious states in humans., Adopting the framework of brain dynamics as a cornerstone of human consciousness, we determined whether dynamic signal coordination provides specific and generalizable patterns pertaining to conscious and unconscious states after brain damage. A dynamic pattern of coordinated and anticoordinated functional magnetic resonance imaging signals characterized healthy individuals and minimally conscious patients. The brains of unresponsive patients showed primarily a pattern of low interareal phase coherence mainly mediated by structural connectivity, and had smaller chances to transition between patterns. The complex pattern was further corroborated in patients with covert cognition, who could perform neuroimaging mental imagery tasks, validating this pattern’s implication in consciousness. Anesthesia increased the probability of the less complex pattern to equal levels, validating its implication in unconsciousness. Our results establish that consciousness rests on the brain’s ability to sustain rich brain dynamics and pave the way for determining specific and generalizable fingerprints of conscious and unconscious states.

The study of working memory capacity is of outmost importance in cognitive psychology as working memory is at the basis of general cognitive function. Although the storage capacity limit has been thoroughly studied [1], its origin still remains a matter of debate. Several neurophysiological studies suggest that items are maintained in working memory through elevated firing activity in cortical neural assemblies that selectively respond to specific stimuli. Accounting for this experimental observation, Edin et al. [2] proposed a mechanistic explanation of the top-down control of working memory capacity and, based on a mean-field analysis, established an upper boundary to the number of items that can be held in memory. By also making use of a recurrent network model of working memory [3], we have further investigated the mechanisms underlying working memory capacity while also accounting for the two following experimental observations: 1) visual saliency reduces the number of items that can be held in working memory, and 2) visually salient items are commonly kept in memory in delay match-to-sample tasks at the cost of not keeping as many non-salient items. Figure 1 Theoretical prediction of the performance derived from computational simulations of a delayed match-to-sample task with n selective neural assemblies simultaneously stimulated. Performance is calculated by assuming that an item is held in memory when ...