Topic: temporal variability

Spontaneous behavior in animals and humans shows a striking amount of variability both in the spatial domain (which actions to choose) and temporal domain (when to act). Concatenating actions into sequences and behavioral plans reveals the existence of a hierarchy of timescales ranging from hundreds of milliseconds to minutes. How do multiple timescales emerge from neural circuit dynamics? How do circuits modulate temporal responses to flexibly adapt to changing demands? In this talk, we will present recent results from experiments and theory suggesting a new computational mechanism generating

Spontaneous behavior in animals and humans shows a striking amount of variability both in the spatial domain (which actions to choose) and temporal domain (when to act). Concatenating actions into sequences and behavioral plans reveals the existence of a hierarchy of timescales ranging from hundreds of milliseconds to minutes. How do multiple timescales emerge from neural circuit dynamics? How do circuits modulate temporal responses to flexibly adapt to changing demands? In this talk, we will present recent results from experiments and theory suggesting a new computational mechanism generating

Cortical neurons in vivo exhibit significant temporal variability, the source of which is crucial for understanding its computational and behavioural implications [1,2]. However, to match experimental observations, single-cell activity must fluctuate over much longer time scales than typical neural and synaptic time scales [3,4]. Balanced networks generally do not produce such slow fluctuations in firing rates, raising questions about their origin. Some theories attribute them to precise synaptic connectivity [5] according to an alternative scenario slow fluctuations in the rates result from n