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tivated on micro-electrode arrays. These cultures, indeed, are widely used as a tool
for laboratory controlled non invasive investigations of network neuronal systems'
organization and dynamics, allowing for chemical and electrical manipulations. The
series of experiments described in this Chapter allows to look at cultured neuronal
networks as complex dynamical biophysical systems that have some forms of intrin-
sic memory, information coding and self-regulation, and that further show repeating
activity motifs and long term adaptation processes to changing environment, in re-
sponse to dierent external stimuli, such as morphology constrains and thermal
stimulations.
The second part of the topic ends with the Chapter by Memmesheimer and
Timme, presenting the state of the art on how patterns of precisely timed and
synchronized spikes emerge in neural circuits. In this Chapter the reader will nd
an overview of a series of recent results on synchrony and spatio-temporal patterns
in recurrent networks. Two classes of hypothesis that might be at the basis of the
emergence of such precisely timed spikes are discussed: the possibility that some
feed-forward anatomical structures are embedded in the cortical circuit supporting
the propagation of synchronous spiking activity, and the alternative possibility that
recurrent networks may collectively organize synchronous spikes without the need
of a specic feed-forward anatomy.
Part III of the topic is devoted to networks at the individual and population
levels. The rst Chapter of this part, by Stouer et al. addresses ecological systems
as made up of highly interconnected and complex networks of interactions between
species, and not as independent patches. Although food webs, mutualistic networks
and spatial ones are well described by their structural properties, nowadays little
is known about these networks' dynamics. Given the importance of understanding
as many aspects as possible of the complex interplay between the networks of in-
teracting species with the spatial context in which they live, further developments
along the lines exposed in this Chapter will prove crucial in the future.
The Chapter by Bagnoli discusses evolutionary models in simple biosystems.
The Chapter deals with theoretical approaches to self-organization in evolutionary
population dynamics, including evolution on a tness landscape, dynamic ecosys-
tems, and game theoretical models. Noticeable, the Chapter put into evidence the
role and the emergence of network structure in systems that range several orders of
magnitude, from the elementary constituents to whole ecosystems, with the aim of
showing how macro-evolutionary patterns may arise from a simplied individual-
based dynamics.
The Chapter by Pacheco et al focuses on the evolution of cooperation in adaptive
social networks. The tools used are those of evolutionary game dynamics, coupled to
recent advances in network modeling. Specically the authors discuss the problem
of how cooperation arises in networks that are adaptive and dynamic in nature.
They start from the observation that the structure of many modern networks of
interactions are not stable in the long term and develop a two-player dilemma-
