Resiliency of cortical dynamics through cellular diversity

Diversity is inherent in nature. In this talk, I will explore the concept of cellular biophysical diversity that refers to heterogeneity/variability of the active and passive properties of neurons that belong to a single 'type'. Modern genetic techniques like single-cell RNA sequencing are revealing cellular diversity at an unprecedented scale, a diversity that is thought to represent biological 'noise.' We propose that far from being biological noise, it is a necessary design feature of the brain, providing it with 'dynamical' resiliency to insults. I will use epilepsy as a starting point for this exploration and explain how the study of epilepsy led us towards embracing cellular diversity/heterogeneity/variability as an important variable in the design of the brain. I will cover our experimental work using whole-cell patch clamp technique in human brain tissue, transcriptomics, and the computational and mathematical treatment of this problem in "models" of brain circuits.