Starting with the work of pioneers like Wilson and Cowan in the 1970s, mean‑field models have become a dominant tool for modeling neural activity at the level of neuronal populations.
Despite their popularity, most mean‑field models have been heuristic and not systematically derived from the underlying ‘microscopic’ dynamics of individual neurons.
Today’s guest has made important contributions towards remedying this situation.
Links:
- Schwalger et al.: “Towards a theory of cortical columns: From spiking neurons to interacting neural populations of finite size”, PLoS Computational Biology (2017)
- Schmutz et al.: “Mesoscopic population equations for spiking neural networks with synaptic short-term plasticity”, Journal of Mathematical Neuroscience (2020)
- Jolivet et al.: “The quantitative single-neuron modeling competition”, Biological Cybernetics (2008)
- Chow & Karimipanah: “Before and beyond the Wilson–Cowan equations”, Journal of Neurophysiology (2020)
- Gerstner et al.: “Neuronal Dynamics – From single neurons to networks and models of cognition”, Cambridge University Press (2014)
- Homepage of Tilo Schwalger
The podcast was recorded on March 9th, 2026 and lasts 2 hours and 18 minutes.
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