Distributed neurodynamics and cognition in large-scale brain circuits

In spite of considerable progress in computational neuroscience, most theoretical research has been limited to local neural circuits. With recent technological advances in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, however, neuroscience of multi-regional brain-wide neural circuits is taking off. Here I will introduce large-scale modeling of cortex based onconnectomic data for monkeys and mice. Our model naturally gives rise to a hierarchy of timescales; I will discuss theunderlying mechanism and functional implications. I will highlight macroscopic gradients of synaptic excitation andinhibition as a general principle of the large-scale cortical organization, and illustrate how our modeling platform can be used to investigate distributed cognitive functions such as working memory and decision making. This line of work gives rise to the new concept of “bifurcation in space” to explain the emergence of functional modularity in a large-scale cortical system made of repeats of a canonical local circuit.

Organized by the DEC, the departments of physics and biology of the ENS, in collaboration with the Collège de France and ESPCI.

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