Linking microscopic to macroscopic scales in simulations of the cerebral cortex

To date, the dynamics of cortical circuits has primarily been investigated either within millimeter-scale microcircuits or at meso- to macroscopic scales involving multiple cortical areas, while these scales have not often been brought together. In this talk, I will present work on simulating the resting-state dynamics of large parts of monkey and human cortices at cellular resolution. The large-scale spiking neural network models rely on several anatomical data sets along with statistical predictions of cortical structure, and are simulated on supercomputers using the NEST simulator. The results reveal conditions for reproducing observed microscopic and macroscopic cortical resting-state activity.