Computational modeling of prefrontal cortex circuits

Dissertation presented to obtain the Ph.D degree in Biology

The most outstanding feature of the human brain is its ability to perform highly complex cognitive tasks and one key region of the brain involved in these elaborated tasks is the prefrontal cortex. However, little is known about the basic neuronal processes that sustain these capacities. This dissertation describes the computational study of the biophysical properties of neurons in the prefrontal cortex that underlie complex cognitive processes with special emphasis in working memory, the ability to keep information online in the brain for a short period of time while processing incoming external stimuli.(...)