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Mesoscopic Anatomy and Neural Population Models

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Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience

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Definition

For the purposes of constructing biologically plausible neural population and field models of cortical activity, it is necessary to take into account the anatomical and histological organization of the cortex that is intermediate in scale between that of the single neuron and the whole brain. The anatomy of the intermediate, or mesoscopic, level of cortical organization is defined by the variety of neuronal and nonneuronal cellular components, their spatial disposition and organization, and the structural features of their bulk connectivity.

Detailed Description

The thin outer rind of the mammalian brain, the neocortex, is generally thought to be the principal structure responsible for the generation and elaboration of purposeful activity. For a structure that is between 1 and 5 mm thick and has a surface area of only ~0.19 m2 (Van Essen 2005) in humans, it has an unparalleled degree of structural complexity with the ~2.1010 neurons (Pakkenberg and Gundersen 1997) broadly...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brain and Psychological Sciences Research Centre, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, Australia

    Prof. David T. J. Liley

Authors
  1. Prof. David T. J. Liley
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Correspondence to David T. J. Liley .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Dieter Jaeger

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA

    Ranu Jung

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Liley, D.T.J. (2013). Mesoscopic Anatomy and Neural Population Models. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_66-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_66-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7320-6

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