NYU/CNS : Faculty : Associates of CNS : David W. McLaughlin

David W. McLaughlin I work in theoretical visual neural science, with emphasis upon modeling of the primary visual cortex. The work requires methods from four aspects of modern applied mathematics (mathematical modeling, computational science, formal asymptotics, and mathematical analysis), together with direct use of experimental data and design.

Much of my research is performed in collaboration with Professor Robert Shapley who provides an experimental component. I (with Robert Shapley and Michael Shelley, and with postdocs Jacob Wielaard and Louis Tao) have been developing a biologically constrained large-scale computational model of the "front-end" of the cortical visual system—the primary visual cortex (V1). The work has focused upon local properties of individual cells within the large-scale network—properties such as orientation selectivity, simple vs complex cellular dynamics, and the high-conductance cortical operating point.

The next step is to scale-up to a more global cortical model of V1, reaching scales large enough to study elementary optical illusions of psychology and psychophysics. For computational efficiency, a coarse-grained mixed representation will be developed—a representation which will combine spatially coarse-grained (local) mean firing rates representing local background cortical operating points, with an idealized representation of a sub-network of individual point neurons embedded within this background.

E-mail: david.mclaughlin@nyu.edu

Selected Publications

McLaughlin, D., Shapley, R., Shelley, M., and Wielaard, J. (2000) A neuronal network model of the macaque primary visual cortex v1: orientation tuning and dynamics in the input layer 4C. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97 14: 8087-8092
Wielaard, J., Shelley, M., McLaughlin, and D., Shapley, R. (2001) How simple cells are made in a nonlinear network model of the visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience 21: 5203-5211
Shelley, M., McLaughlin, D., Wielaard, J., and Shapley, R. (2002) The high conductance state caused by visual stimulation in a large-scale computational model of the visual cortexÑan emergent separation of time scales. Journal of Computational Neuroscience 13: 93-109
Shelley, M. and McLaughlin, D. (2002) Coarse grained reduction and analysis of a model of cortical response: i. drifting grating stimuli. Journal of Computational Neuroscience 12: 97-122
Shapley, R., McLaughlin, D., and Shelley, M. (2002) Orientation selectivity: Models and neural mechanisms. In The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks: The Second Edition, ed, M.A. Arbib, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
McLaughlin, D., Shapley, R., Shelley, M., and Wielaard, J. (2002) High conductance dynamics of the primary visual cortex. Springer Applied Mathematical Sciences Series, in press
McLaughlin, D., Shapley, R., and Shelley, M. (2002) Large-scale modeling of the primary visual cortex: influence of cortical architecture upon neuronal response. Journal of Physiology, in press