Computational Glioscience

Computational Glioscience

Over the last two decades, the recognition that astrocytes - the predominant type of cortical glial cells - could sense neighboring neuronal activity and release neuroactive agents, has been instrumental in the uncovering of many roles that these cells could play in brain processing and the storage of information. These findings initiated a conceptual revolution that leads to rethinking how brain communication works since they imply that information travels and is processed not just in the neuronal circuitry but in an expanded neuron-glial network. On the other hand the physiological need for astrocyte signaling in brain information processing and the modes of action of these cells in computational tasks remain largely undefined. This is due, to a large extent, both to the lack of conclusive experimental evidence, and to a substantial lack of a theoretical framework to address modeling and characterization of the many possible astrocyte functions. This book that we propose aims at filling this gap, providing the first systematic computational approach to the complex, wide subject of neuron-glia interactions. The organization of the book is unique insofar as it considers a selection of “hot topics” in glia research that ideally brings together both the novelty of the recent experimental findings in the field and the modelling challenge that they bear. A chapter written by experimentalists, possibly in collaboration with theoreticians, will introduce each topic. The aim of this chapter, that we foresee less technical in its style than in conventional reviews, will be to provide a review as clear as possible, of what is “established” and what remains speculative (i.e. the open questions). Each topic will then be presented in its possible different aspects, by 2-3 chapters by theoreticians. These chapters will be edited in order to provide a “priming” reference for modeling neuron-glia interactions, suitable both for the graduate student and the professional researcher.

Criticality in neural network behavior and its implications for computational processing in healthy and perturbed conditions

Computational Modelling of the Brain

This volume offers an up-to-date overview of essential concepts and modern approaches to computational modelling, including the use of experimental techniques related to or directly inspired by them. The book introduces, at increasing levels of complexity and with the non-specialist in mind, state-of-the-art topics ranging from single-cell and molecular descriptions to circuits and networks. Four major themes are covered, including subcellular modelling of ion channels and signalling pathways at the molecular level, single-cell modelling at different levels of spatial complexity, network modelling from local microcircuits to large-scale simulations of entire brain areas and practical examples. Each chapter presents a systematic overview of a specific topic and provides the reader with the fundamental tools needed to understand the computational modelling of neural dynamics. This book is aimed at experimenters and graduate students with little or no prior knowledge of modelling who are interested in learning about computational models from the single molecule to the inter-areal communication of brain structures. The book will appeal to computational neuroscientists, engineers, physicists and mathematicians interested in contributing to the field of neuroscience. Chapters 6, 10 and 11 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.