The spread of rate and correlation in stationary cortical networks

The analysis of the spatial and temporal structure of spike cross-correlation in experimental data is an important tool in the exploration of cortical processing. Recent theoretical studies investigated the impact of correlation between afferents on the spike rate of single neurons and the effect of input correlation on the output correlation of pairs of neurons. Here, this knowledge is combined to a model simultaneously describing the spatial propagation of rate and correlation, allowing for an interpretation of its constituents in terms of network activity. The application to an embedded feed-forward network provides insight into the mechanisms stabilizing its asynchronous mode. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.