Before revision:  This spatial subsampling has hindered characterizing even most basic properties of collective spiking in cortical networks. In particular, two contradictory hypotheses prevailed for over a decade: the first proposed an asynchronous irregular state, the second a critical state. While distinguishing them is straightforward in models, we show that in experiments classical approaches fail to correctly infer network dynamics because of subsampling. Deploying a novel, subsampling-invariant estimator, we find that in vivo dynamics do not comply with either hypothesis , but instead occupy a narrow "reverberating " state consistently across multiple mammalian species and cortical areas.
After revision:  This spatial subsampling has hindered characterizing even most basic properties are not known with certainty, because their assessment is hampered by spatial subsampling, i.e. the limitation that only a tiny fraction of all neurons can be recorded simultaneously with millisecond precision. Building on a novel, subsampling-invariant estimator, we find that in vivo dynamics do not comply with either hypothesis , but instead occupy a narrow "reverberating " state consistently across multiple mammalian species and cortical areas.