Phase-specific Activation Induces Latent Connectivity Changes

A recent paper provides rare causal evidence that phase-specific stimulation during beta oscillation bursts lead to transient changes in effective (latent) connectivity. This finding and its potentially widespread implications are discussed in our paper Womelsdorf T, Hoffman K (2018) Latent Connectivity: Neuronal Oscillations Can Be Leveraged for Transient Plasticity. Current Biology. 28(16):R879-R882..

Related News

The phase of firing of fronto-striatal neurons encodes learning variables

Our new paper shows that neurons in the striatum, anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex encode learning variables in the phase of firing. We outline a powerful regression based analysis pipeline that revealed spiking activity of neurons relative to the phase of beta oscillations carries significant learning information during reversal learning. The paper can be downloaded […]

2017 E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship Award

What an honour and incredible acknowledgment of our research – Thilo received the 2017 E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship Award with five fellow scientists in Canada and across the Natural Sciences and Engineering. This is one of the most prestigious awards for young scientists in Canada, celebrating the critical role of fundamental, basic research for driving […]

Updating of Attentional Priorities is supported by Noradrenergic Receptors

Our new paper shows that the flexible learning of attention sets is facilitated by noradrenergic receptor action. The paper “Noradrenergic alpha-2a receptor stimulation enhances prediction error signaling and updating of attention sets in anterior cingulate cortex and striatum” is published in Nature Communications was led by PhD alumnus Ali Hassani and found that neuronal firing […]