Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/S74249/01
Title:	Dynamics of Synchronous Collective Behaviour in Neuron Network Models & Related Physical Systems
Principal Investigator:	Sherrington, Professor D
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Researcher Co-Investigators:
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Department:	Oxford Physics
Organisation:	University of Oxford
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	15 January 2004	Ends:	14 May 2004	Value (£):	13,440
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EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
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Summary on Grant Application Form
The recent emphasis on synchronous firing of neurons in vivo and in integrate-and-fire neuron models opens up a new opportunity for interactions between Physics and Neuroscience. Physically the synchronicity associated with cognitive processing amounts to the collective process of a subset of firing neurons developing phase coherence in a (transient) limit cycle. We will explore connections between the dynamics of neuron action potentials and of physical systems far from equilibrium. We will study differential equation models of neural networks and also determine to what extent rulebased dynamics of simple cellular automata can efficiently capture the development of coherence. The role of dynamics is often just a mechanism to achieve equilibrium, but for the development of synchronous firing of neurons, it is the route we take rather than the eventual asymptotic state that is key, and dynamics becomes everything.The Visiting Researcher has a background in correlated electron systems where collective phase coherence typically originates from quantum dynamics, and he is using his sabbatical leave to work on the interface between computational neurobiology and dynamics and pattern formation in complex systems. He will spend the first half of his sabbatical at Princeton University working with John Hopfield on preliminary work in this area. The Visiting Researcher will then spend the second half of his sabbatical at Oxford University, working with colleagues in Physics and at the McDonnell Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience.
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Organisation Website:	http://www.ox.ac.uk