Carlo
Fulvi Mari
Personal webpage
Publications
Link on reference is to the abstract on the journal website. Link on title is to download the post-peer-review author's version (PDF).
C. Fulvi Mari, Memory retrieval dynamics and storage capacity of a modular network model of association cortex with featural decomposition, BioSystems 211, 104570 (2022).
C. Fulvi Mari, Inferring population statistics of receptor neurons sensitivities and firing-rates from general functional requirements, BioSystems 193–194, 104153 (2020).
C. Fulvi Mari, Extremely dilute modular neuronal networks: Neocortical memory retrieval dynamics, Journal of Computational Neuroscience 17: 57 (2004).
C. Fulvi Mari, Random networks of spiking neurons: Instability in the Xenopus tadpole moto-neural pattern, Physical Review Letters 85: 210 (2000).
C. Fulvi Mari, Random fields and probability distributions with given marginals: a general method and a problem from theoretical neuroscience, Journal of Physics A: Math. Gen. 33: 23 (2000).
C. Fulvi Mari and A. Treves, Modeling neocortical areas with a modular neural network, BioSystems 48: 47 (1998).
Academic degrees
Laurea cum laude in Physics (Theoretical; =BSc+MSc, Highest Honour) -- University of Rome 1 Sapienza, Rome, Italy.
PhD cum laude in Cognitive Neuroscience (Theoretical; Highest Honour) -- International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Trieste, Italy.
Scientific miscellanea:
In vivo multi-neuron activity imaging
Calcium fluorescence imaging of Olfactory Receptor Neurons located in the dorsal organ ganglion of the Drosophila larva, an analogue of the mammalian olfactory epithelium. The graph shows fluorescence intensity changes for each of four ORNs in response to pulsed exposition to 1-pentanol at increasing concentrations. Calcium influx ensues the binding of receptor and odorant molecule, not necessarily leading to the production of action potentials. The different sensitivities shown by the ORNs in the clip reflect the difference in binding affinity of their respective receptors to 1-pentanol. (Notice the actual time in abscissa.) [Clip from VideoS1 of Si et al., Neuron 101: 950–962 (2019).]
Gravitational waves and gamma-ray burst from a merger
The gravitational-wave event GW170817 as observed by the LIGO detectors (bottom, the "chirp"), and the gamma-ray burst GRB 170817A as observed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (top), generated respectively before and after the merger of two neutron stars. The frequency of the GWs increased as the two objects spiralled towards each other, with the production of a short gamma-ray burst following the merger by a few seconds, compatibly with model predictions. The merger had happened about 130 million years before the space-time ripples and the e.m. burst reached Earth.
The semantic network of the human brain
From Fig. 7 of Binder, Desai, Graves and Conant, Cerebral Cortex 19, 2767 (2009), a meta-analysis of 120 functional neuroimaging publications selected from hundreds.
Gold ions head-on impacts at 200GeV in the STAR detector of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Each impact may create a ball of quark-gluon plasma, at temperatures over 10^(12)K, on a typical length-scale of 10^(-15)m, that lasts about 10^(-24)s before transforming into a shower of over ten thousand particles. The quark-gluon plasma is thought to be representative of the conditions in the Universe about 1 microsecond after the Big Bang, just after GUT spontaneous symmetry breaking probably... possibly... perhaps...
Cortico-cortical connections
A coronal section in area TEO of the macaque inferotemporal cortex, with triple retrograde fluorescent tracing, from Fig. S1 of Ichinohe, Borra and Rockland, Sci. Rep . 2, 934 (2012). The length of the arrows corresponds to about 1mm. The RED stains are from an injection of one of the tracers in a small spot of area TE (not shown) and are due to white-matter projections from TEO to TE. The GREEN stains are from an injection (green arrow) of another tracer into the red spot and are due to grey-matter projections within TEO. The BLUE stains are from an injection (blue arrow) of the third tracer, away from the red spot, and are due to grey-matter projections. In YELLOW are neurons that are stained by both the red and the green tracers.
Some peculiar triangles:
Kanizsa triangle
Illusory contour and overlap
(tricking the brain, part I)
Sierpinski triangle
Self-similar fractal
(a peek at infinity)
Penrose triangle
Impossible object
(tricking the brain, part II)