scholarly journals Spontaneous electrical low-frequency oscillations: a possible role in Hydra and all living systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1820) ◽  
pp. 20190763 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Hanson

As one of the first model systems in biology, the basal metazoan Hydra has been revealing fundamental features of living systems since it was first discovered by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in the early eighteenth century. While it has become well-established within cell and developmental biology, this tiny freshwater polyp is only now being re-introduced to modern neuroscience where it has already produced a curious finding: the presence of low-frequency spontaneous neural oscillations at the same frequency as those found in the default mode network in the human brain. Surprisingly, increasing evidence suggests such spontaneous electrical low-frequency oscillations (SELFOs) are found across the wide diversity of life on Earth, from bacteria to humans. This paper reviews the evidence for SELFOs in diverse phyla, beginning with the importance of their discovery in Hydra , and hypothesizes a potential role as electrical organism organizers, which supports a growing literature on the role of bioelectricity as a ‘template’ for developmental memory in organism regeneration. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Basal cognition: conceptual tools and the view from the single cell’.

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 1205-1215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor J. Boucher ◽  
Annie C. Gilbert ◽  
Boutheina Jemel

Studies that use measures of cerebro-acoustic coherence have shown that theta oscillations (3–10 Hz) entrain to syllable-size modulations in the energy envelope of speech. This entrainment creates sensory windows in processing acoustic cues. Recent reports submit that delta oscillations (<3 Hz) can be entrained by nonsensory content units like phrases and serve to process meaning—though such views face fundamental problems. Other studies suggest that delta underlies a sensory chunking linked to the processing of sequential attributes of speech sounds. This chunking associated with the “focus of attention” is commonly manifested by the temporal grouping of items in sequence recall. Similar grouping in speech may entrain delta. We investigate this view by examining how low-frequency oscillations entrain to three types of stimuli (tones, nonsense syllables, and utterances) having similar timing, pitch, and energy contours. Entrainment was indexed by “intertrial phase coherence” in the EEGs of 18 listeners. The results show that theta oscillations at central sites entrain to syllable-size elements in speech and tones. However, delta oscillations at frontotemporal sites specifically entrain to temporal groups in both meaningful utterances and meaningless syllables, which indicates that delta may support but does not directly bear on a processing of content. The findings overall suggest that, although theta entrainment relates to a processing of acoustic attributes, delta entrainment links to a sensory chunking that relates to a processing of properties of articulated sounds. The results also show that measures of intertrial phase coherence can be better suited than cerebro-acoustic coherence in revealing delta entrainment.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Saez ◽  
Jack Lin ◽  
Edward Chang ◽  
Josef Parvizi ◽  
Robert T. Knight ◽  
...  

AbstractHuman neuroimaging and animal studies have linked neural activity in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) to valuation of positive and negative outcomes. Additional evidence shows that neural oscillations, representing the coordinated activity of neuronal ensembles, support information processing in both animal and human prefrontal regions. However, the role of OFC neural oscillations in reward-processing in humans remains unknown, partly due to the difficulty of recording oscillatory neural activity from deep brain regions. Here, we examined the role of OFC neural oscillations (<30Hz) in reward processing by combining intracranial OFC recordings with a gambling task in which patients made economic decisions under uncertainty. Our results show that power in different oscillatory bands are associated with distinct components of reward evaluation. Specifically, we observed a double dissociation, with a selective theta band oscillation increase in response to monetary gains and a beta band increase in response to losses. These effects were interleaved across OFC in overlapping networks and were accompanied by increases in oscillatory coherence between OFC electrode sites in theta and beta band during gain and loss processing, respectively. These results provide evidence that gain and loss processing in human OFC are supported by distinct low-frequency oscillations in networks, and provide evidence that participating neuronal ensembles are organized functionally through oscillatory coherence, rather than local anatomical segregation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Kathy L. Ruddy ◽  
David M. Cole ◽  
Colin Simon ◽  
Marc T. Bächinger

The occurrence of neuronal spikes recorded directly from sensory cortex is highly irregular within and between presentations of an invariant stimulus. The traditional solution has been to average responses across many trials. However, with this approach, response variability is downplayed as noise, so it is assumed that statistically controlling it will reveal the brain’s true response to a stimulus. A mounting body of evidence suggests that this approach is inadequate. For example, experiments show that response variability itself varies as a function of stimulus dimensions like contrast and state dimensions like attention. In other words, response variability has structure, is therefore potentially informative and should be incorporated into models which try to explain neural encoding. In this article we provide commentary on a recently published study by Coen-Cagli and Solomon that incorporates spike variability in a quantitative model, by explaining it as a function of divisive normalization. We consider the potential role of neural oscillations in this process as a potential bridge between the current microscale findings and response variability at the mesoscale/macroscale level.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 2379-2400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Camilo Restrepo ◽  
Aldemar Higgins ◽  
Jaime Escobar ◽  
Silvio Ospino ◽  
Natalia Hoyos

Abstract. This study evaluated the influence of low-frequency oscillations, that are linked to large-scale oceanographic–atmospheric processes, on streamflow variability in small tropical coastal mountain rivers of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. We used data from six rivers that had > 32 years of complete, continuous monthly streamflow records. This investigation employed spectral analyses to (1) explore temporal characteristics of streamflow variability, (2) estimate the net contribution to the energy spectrum of low-frequency oscillations to streamflow anomalies, and (3) analyze the linkages between streamflow anomalies and large-scale, low-frequency oceanographic–atmospheric processes. Wavelet analyses indicate that the 8–12-year component exhibited a quasi-stationary state, with a peak of maximum power between 1985 and 2005. These oscillations were nearly in phase in all rivers. Maximum power peaks occurred for the Palomino and Rancheria rivers in 1985 and 1995, respectively. The wavelet spectrum highlights a change in river variability patterns between 1995 and 2015, characterized by a shift towards the low-frequency oscillations' domain (8–12 years). The net contribution of these oscillations to the energy spectrum was as high as 51 %, a value much larger than previously thought for rivers in northwestern South America. The simultaneous occurrence of hydrologic oscillations, as well as the increase in the amplitude of the 8–12-year band, defined periods of extremely anomalous wet seasons during 1989–1990, 1998–2002 and 2010–2011, reflecting the role of low-frequency oscillations in modulating streamflow variability in these rivers. Cross-wavelet transform and wavelet coherence revealed high common powers and significant coherences in low-frequency bands (>96 months) between streamflow anomalies and Atlantic Meridional Oscillation (AMO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Tropical North Atlantic Index (TNA). These results show the role of large-scale, low-frequency oceanographic–climate processes in modulating the long-term hydrological variability of these rivers.


2000 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darrel P. FRANCIS ◽  
L. Ceri DAVIES ◽  
Keith WILLSON ◽  
Piotr PONIKOWSKI ◽  
Andrew J.S. COATS ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fleur L. Bouwer ◽  
Johannes J. Fahrenfort ◽  
Samantha K. Millard ◽  
Heleen A. Slagter

AbstractTemporal expectations (e.g., predicting “when”) facilitate sensory processing, and are suggested to rely on entrainment of low frequency neural oscillations to regular rhythmic input. However, temporal expectations can be formed not only in response to a regular beat, such as in music (“beat-based” expectations), but also based on a predictable pattern of temporal intervals of different durations (“memory-based” expectations). Here, we examined the neural mechanisms underlying beat-based and memory-based expectations, by assessing EEG activity and behavioral responses during silent periods following rhythmic auditory sequences that allowed for beat-based or memory-based expectations, or had random timing. In Experiment 1 (N = 32), participants rated how well probe tones at various time points fitted the previous rhythm. Beat-based expectations affected fitness ratings for at least two beat-cycles, while the effects of memory-based expectations subsided after the first expected time point in the silence window. In Experiment 2 (N = 27), using EEG, we found a CNV following the final tones of memory-based and random, but not beat-based sequences, suggesting that climbing neuronal activity may specifically reflect memory-based expectations. Moreover, we found enhanced power in the EEG signal at the beat frequency for beat-based sequences both during listening and the silence. For memory-based sequences, we found enhanced power at a frequency inherent to the memory-based pattern only during listening, but not during the silence, suggesting that ongoing entrainment of low frequency oscillations may be specific to beat-based expectations. Finally, using multivariate pattern decoding on the raw EEG data, we could classify above chance from the silence which type of sequence participants had heard before. Together, our results suggest that beat-based and memory-based expectations rely on entrainment and climbing neuronal activity, respectively.


1996 ◽  
Vol 271 (3) ◽  
pp. R641-R646 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. S. O'Leary ◽  
D. J. Woodbury

The objective of this study was to determine the role of cardiac output in mediating spontaneous fluctuations in mean arterial pressure (MAP) conscious dogs. Dogs were chronically instrumented to monitor MAP and cardiac output. Atrioventricular (AV) block was induced, and left ventricular and right atrial electrodes were implanted. After recovery, MAP was observed for 5 min under two conditions: 1) normal variation in heart rate and cardiac output via triggering the ventricular stimulator with each atrial depolarization (effectively reversing the AV block, AV-linked stimulation) and 2) computer control of ventricular rate to maintain cardiac output constant on a by-beat basis at the same level as observed during normal variations in heart rate and cardiac output. When cardiac output was held constant, large-amplitude, low-frequency oscillations in MAP were readily apparent. Spectral analysis by fast Fourier transform revealed that during constant cardiac output the power observed at low frequencies in the MAP spectrum represented 95.0 +/- 2.7% of the total power compared with 75.5 +/- 4.6% during normal variations in heart rate and cardiac output (P < 0.05). In addition, when cardiac output was held constant, the power observed at higher frequencies markedly decreased from 24.5 +/- 4.6% of total power during AV-linked stimulation to only 5.0 +/- 2.7% of total power during constant cardiac output (P < 0.05). We conclude that low-frequency oscillations in MAP are due to changes in peripheral resistance, whereas a significant amount of high-frequency changes in MAP stems from spontaneous changes in cardiac output.


2019 ◽  
Vol 297 ◽  
pp. 01003
Author(s):  
Vladimir Ivanov ◽  
Sergey Popov ◽  
Nikolay Dontsov ◽  
Dieudonné Essola

The results of investigations of zinc coatings obtained on the surface of metals in the process of mechanochemical synthesis realized in conditions of vibro-wave technological systems (VTS) are presented. The features of the morphology of the coating structure are revealed, which activates the role of indents in the formation of free-moving vibrations under the influence of low-frequency oscillations, and its influence on increasing the operational properties of the surface layer of the parts. The advantages of this method of applying zinc coatings in comparison with traditional methods are shown.


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