Collective Oscillations in the Visual Cortex

The firing patterns of populations of cells in the cat visual cortex can exhibit oscillatory responses in the range of 35 85 Hz. Furthermore, groups of neurons many mm's apart can be highly synchronized as long as the cells have similar orientation tuning. We investigate two basic network architectures that incorporate either nearest-neighbor or global feedback interactions and conclude that non-local feedback plays a fundamental role in the initial synchronization and dynamic stability of the oscillations.