Fig 1. Schematic representation of a thalamo-cortical module.

The model consists of four types of neural populations, namely, cortical excitatory (E) and inhibitory neurons (I), thalamo-cortical relay (S), and thalamic reticular neurons (R). The blue arrows show excitatory connections while the red connections with filled circle ends indicate inhibitory connections. The connections from cortex to thalamus is associated with the time delay τ_TC, whereas the latency for signals in reverse direction is τ_CT. The external input to the system originating from subthalamic areas is considered as a non-specific input to relay neurons.