Spontaneous activity is ubiquitous in cortex, but its role in the assembly and maintenance of cortical circuits is unclear at present. Novel chronic recording techniques enable following neural population activity over long periods of time. Combined with adequate statistical analysis techniques this could shed new light on how patterns of population activity in cortex get established and used to build sensory representations. Here, I will present recent advances in characterizing quantitatively the spatiotemporal structure of spontaneous and stimulus-evoked activity in neural populations monitored over periods lasting several days to weeks. I will analyze the development of population activity in the early cortex and assess its structural stability in mature cortical circuits. This analysis reveals sensory representations in the mature cortex that are reflected by the structure of spontaneous activity already at early stages in developmental.
Lunch@ 11:45, Seminar 12-1:00