The interdisciplinary and emerging field of nonlinear dynamics offers new strategies and paradigms for understanding complex systems like the human brain and its relation to mind and behavior. For example, it now appears that pattern formation and self-organization in nonequilibrium physical, chemical and biological systems may be governed by a number of general principles. This emphasis in the natural sciences on structure formation in complex systems is bridging the gap between what one element does and what many of them do when they function cooperatively. The goal of neuroscience, since its early beginnings, has been to do the same for neurons and neuronal groups. Neuroscience must now be supplemented with new mathematical ideas, research strategies and computational tools, if the inherent complexity of the most complex system of all - the human brain and its relation to cognition and behavior - are to be understood.

A key feature of our approach is that it provides a way to traverse (or more mundanely, connect) scales of organization from the behavioral level to the brain level by combining modern imaging technology, novel analysis tools and a neurobiologically realistic model of the cellular and neural ensemble properties of the cerebral cortex.