Dynamics of Activity in Inhomogeneous Neuronal Networks

Real networks, of neurons or other nodes, are typically inhomogeneous with respect to structure, node density, node types and connectivity - yet they are mostly treated as homogeneous, randomly connected or small-world networks. Neuronal networks self-organize to build such inhomogeneous networks. While quite powerful theoretical models address some of this self-organization and predict that the resulting meta-structure has certain advantages for information processing, the properties of real biological neuronal networks and their hierarchical organization are hardly known. I'll present recent work on how structure, activity and homeostatic processes interact in neuronal networks, and how this relates to pathological networks and neurotechnological interaction with them