Computations of volumes in five candidates elections.

We describe several analytical (i.e., precise) results obtained in five candidates social choice elections under the assumption of the Impartial Anonymous Culture.

A neural circuit for spatial summation in visual cortex.

The response of cortical neurons to a sensory stimulus is modulated by the context. In the visual cortex, for example, stimulation of a pyramidal cell's receptive-field surround can attenuate the cell's response to a stimulus in the centre of its receptive field, a phenomenon called surround suppression. Whether cortical circuits contribute to surround suppression or whether the phenomenon is entirely relayed from earlier stages of visual processing is debated.

The information content of physiological and epileptic brain activity.

Cerebral cortex is a highly sophisticated computing machine, feeding on information provided by the senses, which is integrated with other, internally generated patterns of neural activity, to trigger behavioural outputs. Bit by bit, we are coming to understand how this may occur, but still, the nature of the 'cortical code' remains one of the greatest challenges in science. As with other great scientific challenges of the past, fresh insights have come from a coalescence of different experimental and theoretical approaches.

Parvalbumin-expressing interneurons linearly transform cortical responses to visual stimuli.

The response of cortical neurons to a sensory stimulus is shaped by the network in which they are embedded. Here we establish a role of parvalbumin (PV)-expressing cells, a large class of inhibitory neurons that target the soma and perisomatic compartments of pyramidal cells, in controlling cortical responses. By bidirectionally manipulating PV cell activity in visual cortex we show that these neurons strongly modulate layer 2/3 pyramidal cell spiking responses to visual stimuli while only modestly affecting their tuning properties.