Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34464597›Full record

ReviewNeuron2021

What is the dynamical regime of cerebral cortex?

Yashar Ahmadian, Kenneth D Miller

Open access · bronzeAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Neuron, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 72 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
72citing papers in PubMed
0.8field-weighted citation impact, top 32% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

72 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
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  7. Homeostatic Plasticity Enables Stable yet Tunable Neuronal Assemblies.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026
    Article
  8. Input-dependent directionality of interactions between cortical areas.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026
    Article
  9. Article
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  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Designing Neural Dynamics: From Digital Twin Modeling to Regeneration.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025
    Review
  16. Review
  17. Review
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article

12 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Yashar AhmadianComputational and Biological Learning Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. Electronic address: ya311@cam.ac.uk.
Kenneth D MillerCenter for Theoretical Neuroscience, Swartz Program in Theoretical Neuroscience, Kavli Institute for Brain Science, and Department of Neuroscience, College of Physicians and Surgeons and Morton B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. Electronic address: kdm2103@columbia.edu.
Columbia University · USUniversity of Cambridge · GB

Funding

Validating Theoretical Models with Neurophysiology and OptogeneticsU19NS107613 · NINDS · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · PI ADESNIK, HILLEL · 2018 to 2022
$16.7M
Circuitry underlying response summation in mouse and primate: Theory and experimentU01NS108683 · NINDS · SALK INSTITUTE FOR BIOLOGICAL STUDIES · PI BRUNEL, NICOLAS, MILLER, KENNETH D · 2018 to 2020
$2.8M
CRCNS: Theory-guided studies of cortical mechanisms of multi-input integrationR01EY029999 · NEI · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · PI MILLER, KENNETH D, VAN HOOSER, STEPHEN D · 2018 to 2020
$1.2M
NEI NIH HHS R01 EY029999NINDS NIH HHS U01 NS108683NINDS NIH HHS U19 NS107613
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Many studies have shown that the excitation and inhibition received by cortical neurons remain roughly balanced across many conditions. A key question for understanding the dynamical regime of cortex is the nature of this balancing. Theorists have shown that network dynamics can yield systematic cancellation of most of a neuron's excitatory input by inhibition. We review a wide range of evidence pointing to this cancellation occurring in a regime in which the balance is loose, meaning that the net input remaining after cancellation of excitation and inhibition is comparable in size with the factors that cancel, rather than tight, meaning that the net input is very small relative to the canceling factors. This choice of regime has important implications for cortical functional responses, as we describe: loose balance, but not tight balance, can yield many nonlinear population behaviors seen in sensory cortical neurons, allow the presence of correlated variability, and yield decrease of that variability with increasing external stimulus drive as observed across multiple cortical areas.

Indexed as

Cerebral CortexModels, NeurologicalNeurons

Identifiers

PMID34464597
PMCPMC9129095
OpenAlexW2971341706

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceTDM
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.