Delay effects in brain dynamics

Abstract

There are in our existence spots of time, That with distinct pre-eminence retain A renovating virtue, whence … our minds Are nourished and invisibly repaired;…(Wordsworth 1888, ||. 208–211, The prelude—book twelfth, imagination and taste, how impaired and restored , written in 1805) This brief introductory paper reviews the methods and the results presented in the special issue. The general destabilizing effects of time delays in nonlinear dynamical systems are summarized and some similarities in the philosophical approaches of neural systems research in distinct disciplines are pointed out. All the invited papers focus on the central role of time delays in the dynamics of neural systems. The research contributions are set in order according to the increasing number of neurons involved in the corresponding study from a couple of neurons through neural fields to populations and clusters of neurons.