Information Processing in the Cortex : Experiments and Theory

There is a tradition of theoretical brain science which started in the forties (Wiener, McCulloch, Turing, Craik, Hebb). This was continued by a small number of people without interruption up to the present. It has definitely provided main guiding lines for brain science, the devel­ opment of which has been spectacular in the last decades. However, within the bulk of experimental neuroscience, the theoreticians some­ times had a difficult stand, since it was felt that the times were not ripe yet and the methods not yet available for a development of a true theoretical speciality in this field. Thus theory remained in the hands of a fairly small club which recruited its members from theoretical physicists, mathematicians and some experimentalists with amateurish theoretical leanings. The boom of approaches which go by the name of 'computational neuroscience', 'neuronal networks', 'associative mem­ ory', 'spinglass theory', 'parallel processing' etc. should not blind one for the fact that the group of people professionally interested in real­ istic models of brain function up to the present date remains rather small and suffers from a lack of professional organization. It was against this background that we decided to organize a meet­ ing on Theoretical Brain Science. The meeting was held April 18 - 20, 1990 and took place at Schloss Ringberg, West-Germany, a facility sponsored by the Max-Planck-Society. Front Matter....Pages I-XII Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Randomness and Constraints in the Cortical Neuropil....Pages 3-21 An Example for Specific Connections in the Visual Cortex....Pages 23-27 A Probabilistic Approach to the Analysis of Propagation Delays in Large Cortical Axonal Trees....Pages 29-49 Front Matter....Pages 51-51 The Biological Role of Neocortex....Pages 53-80 Coding and Computation in the Cortex: Single-Neuron Activity and Cooperative Phenomena....Pages 81-121 Novel Strategies to Unravel Mechanisms of Cortical Function: From Macro- to Micro-Electrophysiological Recordings....Pages 123-137 Neuronal Population Coding and the Elephant....Pages 139-160 Is Spike Frequency the Critical Factor in Recognising the Visual Stimulus?....Pages 161-165 Independence....Pages 167-168 Single Cells versus Neuronal Assemblies....Pages 169-173 Neurons as Computational Elements....Pages 175-178 Some Quantitative Remarks about the Retina, the Primary Visual Cortex, and Visual Perception in Humans....Pages 179-188 Cells in the Visual Cortex are not just Local Receptive-Field Filters....Pages 189-199 Dynamics of Activity in Biology-Oriented Neural Network Models: Stability at Low Firing Rates....Pages 201-223 A Theoretical Approach to the Late Components of the Event-Related Brain Potential....Pages 225-245 Cortical Information Processing as Viewed from the Mass-Action Domain of Evoked Potentials....Pages 247-251 Current Source Density Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Fluorescence Maps in Organotypical Slice Cultures....Pages 253-269 The Contribution of the Striatum to Cortical Function....Pages 271-284 Reconstruction and Characterisation of Neuronal Dynamics: How Attractive is Chaos?....Pages 285-297 Front Matter....Pages 299-299 Horizontal Intracortical Contributions to Functional Specificity in Cat Visual Cortex....Pages 301-323 Front Matter....Pages 299-299 Excitatory, Inhibitory and Neuromodulatory Influences in Central Visual Function....Pages 325-365 Microcircuitry of Cat Visual Cortex....Pages 367-384 Principles of Global Visual Processing of Local Features can be Investigated with Parallel Single-Cell- and Group-Recordings from the Visual Cortex....Pages 385-420 Imaging the Functional Architecture of Cat Area 18 in vivo....Pages 421-440 Blobs or Slabs — is that the Question?....Pages 441-445 How Ideas Survive Evidence to the Contrary: A Comment on Data Display and Modelling....Pages 447-450 Cortical Maps....Pages 451-457 Front Matter....Pages 459-459 Views of a Theoretical Physicist....Pages 461-472 Manifesto of Brain Science....Pages 473-477 This is a cooperative effort to define the present-day interface between experimental brain science and theoretical modelling. Care was taken to balance the experimental contributions with the theoretical analyses, and ineach field the issues were selected according to their relevance and applicability to the other. There are three main topics, referring to the interpretation of neuroanatomical structure, to a general theory of corticalfunction, and to the physiology of the visual cortex. This work attempts to define the contemporary interface between experimental brain science and theoretical modelling. The main topics of discussion are the interpretation of neuroanatomical structure, the theory of cortical function and the physiology of the visual cortex.