Miguel Remondes and Matt Wilson show that theta synchrony between the hippocampus and anterior cingulate during a task in which rats chose one of four trajectories. Theta coherence at 8 Hz lowers slightly (by 1 Hz) when rats enter the decision phase of the task and hippocampal processing of trajectory information precedes that of the anterior cingulate. Thus, lowering of theta synchrony may coordinate the integration of hippocampal information by neurons in the anterior cingulate.
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Brown University researchers show how increases in sigma and delta brain oscillations during sleep correlate with learning new visual and motor skills. The sigma oscillations in particular were traced to the occipital representation of the visual quadrant where the learning took place.
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The all-star team of Buzaki, Logothetis, and Singer discuss how the hierarchy of brain oscillations is remarkably consistent despite huge differences in brain size across different animals. This may allow for multiple time-scale communication and may be a key factor in time management in the brain. They discuss the implications for mental disease and therapy.
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The title says it all. Theta oscillations in humans increased with prediction error and predicted the subject’s learning rates.
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Wolf Singer reviews recent work on cortical dynamics. He concludes that precise temporal coordination between neurons dynamically forms networks and provides a high-dimensional space for neural computations.
For further reading see:
- Rigotti, M., Barak, O., Warden, M.R., Wang, X., Daw, N.D., Miller, E.K., & Fusi, S. “The importance of mixed selectivity in complex cognitive tasks”. Nature, 497, 585-590, 2013 doi:10.1038/nature12160. View PDF
- Miller, E.K. and Fusi, S. (2013) Limber neurons for a nimble mind. Neuron. 78:211-213. View PDF
- Miller, E.K. and Buschman, T.J. (2013) Cortical circuits for the control of attention. Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 23:216–222 View PDF »
- Buschman, T.J., Denovellis, E.L., Diogo, C., Bullock, D. and Miller, E.K. (2012) Synchronous oscillatory neural ensembles for rules in the prefrontal cortex. Neuron, 76: 838-846. View PDF
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Psychedelic drugs desynchronize oscillatory rhythms in the cortex. Like, wow.
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Kramer and Eden offer a new method for assessing cross-frequency coupling between oscillatory neural signals.
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Mirpour and Bisley recorded neural responses and local field potentials from the lateral intraparietal cortex (LIP) during visual search. Previously fixated non-target stimuli elicited greater lower frequency (alpha and beta) oscillations. This suggested that reduced neural responses (and attention) to previously seen stimuli results from oscillatory-based top-down influences from the frontal cortex.
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Adam Gazzaley continues to ride his media wave by making music with the brain oscillations of Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart.
NPR.org -
Ranulfo Romo and crew show delta band (1-4 Hz) synchrony between frontal and parietal cortex that varies with decisions. When there were no decisions to be made, frontal-parietal delta was reduced.