APPLIED MATH SEMINAR

Speaker: Jack Cowan, Mathematics Department, University of Chicago

Title: Statistical Mechanics of Brain Activity

When/where: Friday, May 25th, 11:00AM, AKW 200

We have recently found a way to describe large-scale neural activity in terms of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics [Buice & Cowan, PRE In Press]. This allows us to calculate (perturbatively) the effects of fluctuations and correlations on neural activity. Major results of this formulation include a role for *critical branching*, and the demonstration that there exist non-equilibrium phase transitions in neocortical activity which are in the same universality class as *directed percolation*. This result leads to explanations for the origin of many of the scaling laws found in LFP, EEG, fMRI, and in ISI distributions, and provides a possible explanation for the origin of alpha, beta, gamma, delta and theta waves. It also leads to ways of calculating how correlations can affect neocortical activity, and therefore provides a new tool for investigating the connections between neural dynamics, cognition and behavior.