This work studies the stability and the stochastic properties of neural activity evoked by external
stimulation. The underlying model describes the spatiotemporal dynamics of neural populations
involving both synaptic delay and axonal transmission delay. We show, that the linear model
recasts to a set of affne delay differential equations in spatial Fourier space. Besides a stability
study for general kernels and general external stimulation, the power spectrum of evoked activity
is derived analytically in case of external Gaussian noise. Further applications to specific kernels
reveal critical
uctuations at Hopf- and Turing bifurcations and allow the numerical detection of
1/f fluctuations near the stability threshold.