“…In the cortex, this hallmark of spontaneous activity has been reported since the earliest culture success in vitro (Crain, 1966;Calvet, 1974) and naturally occurs in all isolated cortex preparations thus studied, e.g. in organotypic cultures (Plenz and Aertsen, 1996a;Plenz and Aertsen, 1996b;Gorba, Klostermann et al, 1999;Klostermann and Wahle, 1999;Baker, Corner et al, 2006), dissociated cultures (Maeda, Robinson et al, 1995;Gopal and Gross, 1996;Kamioka, Maeda et al, 1996;Canepari, Bove et al, 1997;Jimbo, Kawana et al, 2000;Segev, Shapira et al, 2001;van Pelt, Corner et al, 2004;Eytan and Marom, 2006), acute cortex slices (Sanchez-Vives and McCormick, 2000), and acutely isolated cortical slabs in vivo (Steriade, Nuñez et al, 1993;Timofeev, Grenier et al, 2000). Quantification of these Correspondence: Dr. Dietmar Plenz, Section on Critical Brain Dynamics, National Institute of Mental Health, Porter Neuroscience Research Center, Bldg.…”