The brain is a complex neural network with highly sophisticated division according to functionality. The cerebral cortex plays a crucial role in memory, attention, thinking, speech, and consciousness. The allegedly smallest functional units of the cortex are cortical columns, bundles of about 10,000 densely and seemingly randomly connected excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Modeling the dynamics of individual neurons requires a good understanding of the electrochemical properties of nerve cell membranes.
The task is to review neuron models with a biologically meaningful parameter selection, and then to study through simulations the dynamic properties of a neural network of one cortical column depending on the strength of external excitation and the choice of neuron model. From the existing literature, it follows that the dynamics can be examined through projection into a low-dimensional space. The proposed study is an interesting introduction to a very broad and intensively developing field of brain dynamics.
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