Maria Sanchez-Vivez, Universitat de Barcelona

Shaping the default mode of the cortical network

Slow oscillations dominate cerebral cortex activity in any situation of disconnection from other brain areas, either functional (slow wave sleep, anesthesia, some lesions) or physical (cortical slices, cortical slabs, experimental or traumatic cortical sections), being remarkably similar across different cortical areas. These and other properties led to suggest that slow oscillations are the default emergent activity of the cortical network (Sanchez-Vives and Mattia, 2014, Arch Ital Biol 152: 147). Such default activity integrates neuronal membrane, synaptic and connectivity properties of the cortex and provides a gauge of the state of the underlying network, being extremely sensitive to variations of the many parameters that affect cortical function. It is also a gauge for identifying pathological states and it has been used for characterizing models of Alzheimer disease, Fragile X or Down Syndrome. In this talk I will present experimental evidence of mechanisms shaping of this default activity and provide theoretical support for it.

Organized by

Susanne Schreiber/Margret Franke