Mechanisms of neural organization and rhythmogenesis during hippocampal and cortical ripples

Neural activity during ripples has attracted great theoretical and experimental attention over the last three decades. Perhaps one reason for such interest is that ripples occur during quiet waking moments and during sleep, times when we reflect and dream about what has just occurred and what we expect to happen next. The hope is that understanding such ‘offline’ activity may yield insights into reflection, planning, and the purposes of sleep. This review focuses on the mechanisms by which neurons organize during these high-frequency events. In studying ripples, broader principles have emerged that relate intrinsic neural properties, network topology and synaptic plasticity in controlling neural activity. Ripples, therefore, serve as an excellent model for studying how properties of a neural network relate to neural dynamics. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Memory reactivation: replaying events past, present and future’.