Event Abstract Back to Event Associating spontaneous with evoked activity in a neural mass model of cat visual cortex Manh Nguyen Trong1*, Ingo Bojak2 and Thomas Knösche1 1 Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, UK 2 School of Psychology (CN-CR), University of Birmingham, United Kingdom Spontaneous activity of the brain at rest frequently has been considered as a mere backdrop to the salient activity evoked by external stimuli or tasks. However, the resting state of the brain consumes most of its energy budget, which suggests a far more important role. An intriguing hint comes from the spontaneous activity patterns in visual area 18, which were observed with voltage sensitive dye in anaesthetized cat by Kenet et al. in 2003 (Nature 425:954-956). These spontaneous patterns closely resembled those evoked by visual stimulation with oriented gratings, except that cortex appeared to cycle between different orientation maps. Moreover, spontaneous patterns similar to those evoked by horizontal and vertical gratings, orientations presumed to be of particular relevance for behaviour, occurred more often than those corresponding to oblique angles. We hypothesize that this kind of spontaneous activity develops largely autonomously, providing a dynamical reservoir of cortical states, which are then associated with visual stimuli through learning. To test this hypothesis, we used a biologically inspired neural mass model to simulate a patch of visual cortex. Spontaneous transitions were induced by modest modifications of the neural connectivity, establishing a so-called stable heteroclinic channel. Significantly, the greater frequency of horizontal and vertical orientation maps emerged spontaneously. We then applied bar-shaped inputs to the model cortex and used simple Hebbian learning rules to modify the corresponding synaptic strengths. After unsupervised learning, different bar inputs reliably evoked their associated orientation state; whereas in the absence of input, the model cortex resumed its spontaneous cycling. We conclude that the experimentally observed similarities between spontaneous and evoked activity of cat visual cortex can be explained as the outcome of a learning process that associates external orientation stimuli with autonomous neural activity. Keywords: computational neuroscience, cat visual cortex, neural mass model, Neural connectivity, neural activity Conference: 5th INCF Congress of Neuroinformatics, Munich, Germany, 10 Sep - 12 Sep, 2012. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Neuroinformatics Citation: Nguyen Trong M, Bojak I and Knösche T (2014). Associating spontaneous with evoked activity in a neural mass model of cat visual cortex. Front. Neuroinform. Conference Abstract: 5th INCF Congress of Neuroinformatics. doi: 10.3389/conf.fninf.2014.08.00047 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 21 Mar 2013; Published Online: 27 Feb 2014. * Correspondence: Dr. Manh Nguyen Trong, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Reading, UK, nguyen@cbs.mpg.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Manh Nguyen Trong Ingo Bojak Thomas Knösche Google Manh Nguyen Trong Ingo Bojak Thomas Knösche Google Scholar Manh Nguyen Trong Ingo Bojak Thomas Knösche PubMed Manh Nguyen Trong Ingo Bojak Thomas Knösche Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.