Kresimir Josic, Math at University of Houston

The impact of patterned activity  in networks of neurons in the
central nervous system has been the source of much
controversy.  With the development of multielectrode
recording  and optical stimulation techniques experimental
neuroscientists are in a position to address this question
experimentally by controlling the pattern of inputs to
a single cell, or groups of neurons.   Since the number of
possible spatiotemporal patterns that can be presented
is enormous, it is impossible to examine the impact of all
of them. The spiking activity of groups of cells is therefore
characterized using different statistics.  The goal of this
project is to generate non-stationary point processes (spike
trains) with predetermined characteristics and try to understand
how they determine the output characteristics of a neuronal
network.