Regensburg 2002 – scientific programme

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SYPH: Physik im Hirn - Physical Approaches to Brain Function

SYPH III: HV III

SYPH III.1: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 13, 2002, 15:20–16:00, H2

Modeling the dynamics of neural networks in the visual cortex — •Fred Wolf — MPI für Strömungsforschung, Göttingen, Germany

Many perceptual abilities of the brain are mediated by the collective dynamics of neural networks in the cerebral cortex. In general, cortical networks are shaped by learning mechanisms and exhibit many levels of organization from the overall network architecture to the biophysical and molecular organization of individual neurons. Considered from a physical point of view, it is therefore a key question how much neurobiological detail is essential for a quantitatively accurate and experimentally predictive theory of cortical information processing. Here I will present models for the emergence of orientation selectivity in the primary visual cortex[1,2,3,4], which suggest that abstract structural principles such as symmetries, the principle of representational completeness, or the requirement that the cortical network is in a highly responsive balanced state can quantitatively explain genuinely collective aspects of visual cortical processing.

[1] Wolf et al., Nature 382:306, (1996). [2] Wolf and Geisel, Nature 395:73, (1998). [3] Löwel and Wolf, Lecture notes in physics 532:1, (1999). [4] Wolf, van Vreeswijk, and Sompolinsky, Soc. Neurosci. Abst. 12.8, (2001).