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גלי מוח: קוגניציה, ביולוגיה ומה שביניהם - מפגש תשיעי (2.7.20) - Rhythmic activity in the brain through a skeptical lens | לימוד בחברותא

גלי מוח: קוגניציה, ביולוגיה ומה שביניהם - מפגש תשיעי (2.7.20) - Rhythmic activity in the brain through a skeptical lens

We watched a recent talk by Prof. Brad Voytek from UCSD (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWRbgAm4f8g) & discussed what we learned. We chose this talk because Brad Voytek’s lab studies rhythmic activity in the brain through a skeptical lens, which we believe is very important for the community of researchers interested in these processes.

In the talk Brad gave an overview of several tools for analyzing frequency data developed in his lab, e.g. tools for extracting putative rhythmic signals from non-rhythmic activity [1], and tools for analyzing non-sinusoidal oscillations [2]. He then described the recent success his lab has had in understanding various parameters of the power spectrum, such as the “slope” of the 1/f background signal, now thought to reflect excitation-inhibition balance [3], and the “knee” often observed in intra-cranial recordings, which they now relate to neuronal-timescales [4]. These advances were achieved using both computational modelling and extensive analyses over (many) open datasets. In the end we learned a lot about the power spectrum, and how important it is to look at non-rhythmic signals, but we realized that we still lack a lot of important information into neural rhythms themselves.

References:

[1] Haller, Matar, et al. "Parameterizing neural power spectra." BioRxiv (2018): 299859.

[2] Cole, Scott, and Bradley Voytek. "Cycle-by-cycle analysis of neural oscillations." Journal of neurophysiology 122.2 (2019): 849-861.

[3] Gao, Richard, Erik J. Peterson, and Bradley Voytek. "Inferring synaptic excitation/inhibition balance from field potentials." Neuroimage 158 (2017): 70-78.

[4] Gao, Richard, et al. "Neuronal timescales are functionally dynamic and shaped by cortical microarchitecture." bioRxiv (2020).

 

Participants:

Gal Vishne

Nir Ofir

Nora Vrieler

Moran Aharoni

Lena Gorina