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"Smart Neurons Offer Neuroscience a Math Lesson," by Barry Cipra. Science, 14 February 1997, page 929.
This article describes how mathematicians are working with neurobiologists to try to understand how collections of neurons synchronize and how that synchrony produces observed behavior. Collections of neurons fire in certain patterns to produce particular outputs, from neural oscillations during sleep to the repetitive grinding motion in a lobster's stomach. In many cases a lot is known about the functioning of the individual cells in a neural network, but little about how the cells interact. Mathematical models, using coupled systems of differential equations, are now becoming sufficiently sophisticated that one can actually use the models to make predictions, which can be checked experimentally. The article describes work of mathematician Nancy Kopell in this area.
