12.10.2009 - Natalia Toporikova and Garret Stanley

Natalia Toporikova - Mathematical Model of Respiratory Neural Control

• Inspiration <= muscles act
• Expiration <= passive relaxation
• Respiration occurs in a single slice of the brain-stem
• Even with synapses blocked some neurons still fire periodically
  • Some because of persistent Na+
  • Some because of persistent Ca++
• Glutamatergic excitation causes Ca++ wave from dendrite to soma
• Oscillation in Ca++ levels comes from shifting of calcium from ER->cytosol->ER and ER shows up in dendrites that are spiny.

Garret Stanley - Building Cortical Representations

• Individual neurons synchronize on the order of 10 ms
• Phase relationships between thalamic neuron firing gives rise to direction sensitivity of edges in visual cortex
• Use noise to sharpen perceptive fields