This book fulfills that need by combining studies of anatomy and physiology and mathematical and computer modeling to obtain a quantitative description of cortical functions. The material is presented didactically; it starts with descriptive anatomy and comprehensively examines all aspects of modeling. The book gradually leads the reader from a macroscopic view of cortical anatomy and a description of standard electrophysiological properties of single neurons to neural network models and synchronous firing chains of neurons. Along the way, the most modern trends of neural network modeling are explored.