DYNAMICS OF FUNCTIONAL COUPLING IN THE CEREBRAL-CORTEX - AN ATTEMPT AT A MODEL-BASED INTERPRETATION

Electrophysiological studies of cortical function on the basis of simultaneous, separable multi-neuron recordings reveal interactions between cortical neurons which strongly depend on the stimulus and behavioral context. Moreover, these interactions exhibit dynamics on several different time scales, with time constants of modulation as low as tens of milliseconds. Possible mechanisms underlying such dynamic organization of the cortical network were investigated by simulations and analytic approaches. We review results from these different studies, concentrating on a comparison of the correlation dynamics in real cortical activity and in various neural network models. In particular, we discuss the influence of global network activity on the functional coupling between neurons embedded in such networks.