This volume contains invited and contributed papers presented at the eighth edition of the International Summer School on Neural Networks, dedicated to Prof.EduardoR.Caianiello.Theschoolwasestablishedin1996byProf.Antonio Zichichi, director of the Ettore Maiorana Centre for Scienti?c Culture in Erice (Sicily), and Prof. Maria Marinaro, director of the International Institute for Advanced Scienti?c Studies in Vietri sul Mare, in Italy. The school is held each year,alternatingbetweenEriceandVietri,proposingsurveysonseveralresearch ?elds related to cybernetics studies and human-machine interaction. The eighth edition of the school was on cortical dynamics and was held in Erice. The contributions collected in this book are aimed at providing primarily high-level tutorial coverage of the ?elds related to cortical dynamics, repo- ing recent experimental and theoretical results investigating the processing, the transmission, and the imprinting of information in the brain, and important functions of the cortical area such as cortical rhythms, cortical neural plasticity, and their structural basis and functional signi?cance. Height surveys, reporting the most recent original results, are o?ered by specialists in the ?
eld. Consequently, the volume may be used as a reference book on models of cortical dynamics from neuroscienceand physics. To this aim the volume is divided into two sections: fundamentals of cortical dynamics, and mathematical models of cortical dynamics.