Multiscale modeling of the primary visual cortex

Unifying the results obtained from the large-scale, physiologically realistic, yet minimal computational primary visual cortex (V1) network models and identifying the single cortical operating state, namely, an intermittent desuppressed state (IDS) with fluctuation-controlled criticality are presented. The study suggests a possible operating state of V1 characterised by high total conductance with strong inhibition, large synaptic fluctuation, and the important role played by the N-methyl-D-aspartic acid conductance in long-range, orientation-specific interactions. The model cortex has the ability to quantitatively and qualitatively reproduce a host of dynamical phenomena exhibited by the real cortex, and the network mechanisms as revealed in the IDS state with fluctuation-controlled criticality in the model V1 dynamics offers suggestions for the physiological underpinnings of the neuronal dynamics in real V1.