Spatiotemporal Patterns in Neurobiology: An Overview for Future Artificial Intelligence

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in developing models and tools to address the complex patterns of connectivity found in brain tissue. Specifically, this is due to a need to understand how emergent properties emerge from these network structures at multiple spatiotemporal scales. We argue that computational models are key tools for elucidating the possible functionalities that can emerge from interactions of heterogeneous neurons connected by complex networks on multi-scale temporal and spatial domains. Here we review several classes of models including spiking neurons, integrate and fire neurons with short term plasticity (STP), conductance based integrate-and-fire models with STP, and population density neural field (PDNF) models using simple examples with emphasis on neuroscience applications while also providing some potential future research directions for AI. These computational approaches allow us to explore the impact of changing underlying mechanisms on resulting network function both experimentally as well as theoretically. Thus we hope these studies will inform future developments in artificial intelligence algorithms as well as help validate our understanding of brain processes based on experiments in animals or humans.