scholarly journals Natural hypothalamic circuit dynamics underlying object memorization

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christin Kosse ◽  
Denis Burdakov

SummaryMemorizing encountered objects is fundamental for normal life, but the underlying natural brain activity remains poorly understood. The hypothalamus is historically implicated in memory disorders, but whether and how its endogenous real-time activity affects object memorization remains unknown. We found that upon self-initiated object encounters, hypothalamic melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) neurons emit dynamic, object-encounter-associated signals encoding object novelty. Optosilencing of these signals, performed in closed-loop with object encounters selectively during object memory acquisition, prevented the ability to recognize the previously encountered objects. Optogenetic and chemogenetic connectivity analyses demonstrated that local GAD65 neurons form an inhibitory GAD65→MCH microcircuit that controls the object-encounter-associated MCH cell signals. GAD65 cell optosilencing during object memory acquisition enhanced future object recognition through MCH-receptor-dependent pathways. These results provide causal evidence that natural, object-associated signals in genetically-distinct but interacting hypothalamic neurons differentially control whether the brain forms object memories.

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (8) ◽  
pp. e1009281
Author(s):  
Gihan Weerasinghe ◽  
Benoit Duchet ◽  
Christian Bick ◽  
Rafal Bogacz

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a well-established treatment option for a variety of neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. The symptoms of these disorders are known to be associated with pathological synchronous neural activity in the basal ganglia and thalamus. It is hypothesised that DBS acts to desynchronise this activity, leading to an overall reduction in symptoms. Electrodes with multiple independently controllable contacts are a recent development in DBS technology which have the potential to target one or more pathological regions with greater precision, reducing side effects and potentially increasing both the efficacy and efficiency of the treatment. The increased complexity of these systems, however, motivates the need to understand the effects of DBS when applied to multiple regions or neural populations within the brain. On the basis of a theoretical model, our paper addresses the question of how to best apply DBS to multiple neural populations to maximally desynchronise brain activity. Central to this are analytical expressions, which we derive, that predict how the symptom severity should change when stimulation is applied. Using these expressions, we construct a closed-loop DBS strategy describing how stimulation should be delivered to individual contacts using the phases and amplitudes of feedback signals. We simulate our method and compare it against two others found in the literature: coordinated reset and phase-locked stimulation. We also investigate the conditions for which our strategy is expected to yield the most benefit.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolai Smetanin ◽  
Anastasia Belinskaya ◽  
Mikhail Lebedev ◽  
Alexei Ossadtchi

AbstractClosed-loop Neuroscience is based on the experimental approach where the ongoing brain activity is recorded, processed, and passed back to the brain as sensory feedback or direct stimulation of neural circuits. The artificial closed loops constructed with this approach expand the traditional stimulus-response experimentation. As such, closed-loop Neuroscience provides insights on the function of loops existing in the brain and the ways the flow of neural information could be modified to treat neurological conditions.Neural oscillations, or brain rhythms, are a class of neural activities that have been extensively studied and also utilized in brain rhythm-contingent (BRC) paradigms that incorporate closed loops. In these implementations, instantaneous power and phase of neural oscillations form the signal that is fed back to the brain.Here we addressed the problem of feedback delay in BRC paradigms. In many BRC systems, it is critical to keep the delay short. Long delays could render the intended modification of neural activity impossible because the stimulus is delivered after the targeted neural pattern has already completed. Yet, the processing time needed to extract oscillatory components from the broad-band neural signals can significantly exceed the period of oscillations, which puts a demand for algorithms that could minimize the delay.We used EEG data collected in human subjects to systematically investigate the performance of a range of signal processing methods in the context of minimizing delay in BRC systems. We proposed a family of techniques based on the least-squares filter design – a transparent and simple approach, as it required a single parameter to adjust the accuracy versus latency trade-off. Our algorithm performed on par or better than the state-of the art techniques currently used for the estimation of rhythm envelope and phase in closed-loop EEG paradigms.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (9) ◽  
pp. 1769-1811 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence R. Frank ◽  
Vitaly L. Galinsky

The ability of functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) to noninvasively measure fluctuations in brain activity in the absence of an applied stimulus offers the possibility of discerning functional networks in the resting state of the brain. However, the reconstruction of brain networks from these signal fluctuations poses a significant challenge because they are generally nonlinear and nongaussian and can overlap in both their spatial and temporal extent. Moreover, because there is no explicit input stimulus, there is no signal model with which to compare the brain responses. A variety of techniques have been devised to address this problem, but the predominant approaches are based on the presupposition of statistical properties of complex brain signal parameters, which are unprovable but facilitate the analysis. In this article, we address this problem with a new method, entropy field decomposition, for estimating structure within spatiotemporal data. This method is based on a general information field-theoretic formulation of Bayesian probability theory incorporating prior coupling information that allows the enumeration of the most probable parameter configurations without the need for unjustified statistical assumptions. This approach facilitates the construction of brain activation modes directly from the spatial-temporal correlation structure of the data. These modes and their associated spatial-temporal correlation structure can then be used to generate space-time activity probability trajectories, called functional connectivity pathways, which provide a characterization of functional brain networks.


2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Włodzimierz Klonowski ◽  
Pawel Stepien ◽  
Robert Stepien

Over 20 years ago, Watt and Hameroff (1987 ) suggested that consciousness may be described as a manifestation of deterministic chaos in the brain/mind. To analyze EEG-signal complexity, we used Higuchi’s fractal dimension in time domain and symbolic analysis methods. Our results of analysis of EEG-signals under anesthesia, during physiological sleep, and during epileptic seizures lead to a conclusion similar to that of Watt and Hameroff: Brain activity, measured by complexity of the EEG-signal, diminishes (becomes less chaotic) when consciousness is being “switched off”. So, consciousness may be described as a manifestation of deterministic chaos in the brain/mind.


1999 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Casini ◽  
Françoise Macar ◽  
Marie-Hélène Giard

Abstract The experiment reported here was aimed at determining whether the level of brain activity can be related to performance in trained subjects. Two tasks were compared: a temporal and a linguistic task. An array of four letters appeared on a screen. In the temporal task, subjects had to decide whether the letters remained on the screen for a short or a long duration as learned in a practice phase. In the linguistic task, they had to determine whether the four letters could form a word or not (anagram task). These tasks allowed us to compare the level of brain activity obtained in correct and incorrect responses. The current density measures recorded over prefrontal areas showed a relationship between the performance and the level of activity in the temporal task only. The level of activity obtained with correct responses was lower than that obtained with incorrect responses. This suggests that a good temporal performance could be the result of an efficacious, but economic, information-processing mechanism in the brain. In addition, the absence of this relation in the anagram task results in the question of whether this relation is specific to the processing of sensory information only.


Author(s):  
V. A. Maksimenko ◽  
A. A. Harchenko ◽  
A. Lüttjohann

Introduction: Now the great interest in studying the brain activity based on detection of oscillatory patterns on the recorded data of electrical neuronal activity (electroencephalograms) is associated with the possibility of developing brain-computer interfaces. Braincomputer interfaces are based on the real-time detection of characteristic patterns on electroencephalograms and their transformation  into commands for controlling external devices. One of the important areas of the brain-computer interfaces application is the control of the pathological activity of the brain. This is in demand for epilepsy patients, who do not respond to drug treatment.Purpose: A technique for detecting the characteristic patterns of neural activity preceding the occurrence of epileptic seizures.Results:Using multi-channel electroencephalograms, we consider the dynamics of thalamo-cortical brain network, preceded the occurrence of an epileptic seizure. We have developed technique which allows to predict the occurrence of an epileptic seizure. The technique has been implemented in a brain-computer interface, which has been tested in-vivo on the animal model of absence epilepsy.Practical relevance:The results of our study demonstrate the possibility of epileptic seizures prediction based on multichannel electroencephalograms. The obtained results can be used in the development of neurointerfaces for the prediction and prevention of seizures of various types of epilepsy in humans. 


Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 286
Author(s):  
Soheil Keshmiri

Recent decades have witnessed a substantial progress in the utilization of brain activity for the identification of stress digital markers. In particular, the success of entropic measures for this purpose is very appealing, considering (1) their suitability for capturing both linear and non-linear characteristics of brain activity recordings and (2) their direct association with the brain signal variability. These findings rely on external stimuli to induce the brain stress response. On the other hand, research suggests that the use of different types of experimentally induced psychological and physical stressors could potentially yield differential impacts on the brain response to stress and therefore should be dissociated from more general patterns. The present study takes a step toward addressing this issue by introducing conditional entropy (CE) as a potential electroencephalography (EEG)-based resting-state digital marker of stress. For this purpose, we use the resting-state multi-channel EEG recordings of 20 individuals whose responses to stress-related questionnaires show significantly higher and lower level of stress. Through the application of representational similarity analysis (RSA) and K-nearest-neighbor (KNN) classification, we verify the potential that the use of CE can offer to the solution concept of finding an effective digital marker for stress.


Author(s):  
Hans Liljenström

AbstractWhat is the role of consciousness in volition and decision-making? Are our actions fully determined by brain activity preceding our decisions to act, or can consciousness instead affect the brain activity leading to action? This has been much debated in philosophy, but also in science since the famous experiments by Libet in the 1980s, where the current most common interpretation is that conscious free will is an illusion. It seems that the brain knows, up to several seconds in advance what “you” decide to do. These studies have, however, been criticized, and alternative interpretations of the experiments can be given, some of which are discussed in this paper. In an attempt to elucidate the processes involved in decision-making (DM), as an essential part of volition, we have developed a computational model of relevant brain structures and their neurodynamics. While DM is a complex process, we have particularly focused on the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) for its emotional, and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) for its cognitive aspects. In this paper, we present a stochastic population model representing the neural information processing of DM. Simulation results seem to confirm the notion that if decisions have to be made fast, emotional processes and aspects dominate, while rational processes are more time consuming and may result in a delayed decision. Finally, some limitations of current science and computational modeling will be discussed, hinting at a future development of science, where consciousness and free will may add to chance and necessity as explanation for what happens in the world.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Shahul Mujib Kamal ◽  
Norazryana Mat Dawi ◽  
Hamidreza Namazi

BACKGROUND: Walking like many other actions of a human is controlled by the brain through the nervous system. In fact, if a problem occurs in our brain, we cannot walk correctly. Therefore, the analysis of the coupling of brain activity and walking is very important especially in rehabilitation science. The complexity of movement paths is one of the factors that affect human walking. For instance, if we walk on a path that is more complex, our brain activity increases to adjust our movements. OBJECTIVE: This study for the first time analyzed the coupling of walking paths and brain reaction from the information point of view. METHODS: We analyzed the Shannon entropy for electroencephalography (EEG) signals versus the walking paths in order to relate their information contents. RESULTS: According to the results, walking on a path that contains more information causes more information in EEG signals. A strong correlation (p= 0.9999) was observed between the information contents of EEG signals and walking paths. Our method of analysis can also be used to investigate the relation among other physiological signals of a human and walking paths, which has great benefits in rehabilitation science.


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