Inter-areal neural routing states emerge and switch during oscillatory bursts and with attention

We have a new major finding published at Neuron. We found that spiking in different areas (ACC, Striatum, LPFC) engage in ~20ms wide correlations, and that this coordinated activity has systematic time lags that correspond to the anatomical connectivity. These ‘baseline routing states’ are amplified during beta bursts, and switch directionality (between ACC and PFC) during bursts in the theta frequency band (and with attention and during a choice).

The paper has multiple unique analyses and findings, is backed up by biophysically realistic modeling and shows that the specific neurons that contribute to a directionally leading routing state can be identified.

The implications of this paper can be huge, as it documents a neuronal ensemble mechanism that correlates in 20ms time windows during inter-areal coordination. Kudos to Kianoush Banai Boroujeni to have pulled off such a comprehensive and sophisticated novel insight !

Related News

Effective Connectivity Shows Asymmetries in Resonance and Latencies between Medial and Lateral Prefrontal Cortex Connections

The lab has a first article published about the strength, latency and resonance patterns of connections between the anterior cingulate cortex and lateral prefrontal cortex of the macaque. This work was led by postdoc Veronica Nacher and is published in Brain Structure and Function. The paper identifies a novel electrical microstimulation protocol that can be […]

Large-scale support awarded for advanced Neuro-Behavioral Monitoring

Thilo Womelsdorf, Kari Hoffman and eight more members of a large-scale initiative received a large-scale infrastructure support grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, amounting to $3.1M federal support. This extraordinary award allows establishing – in Toronto- an advanced neuroscience infrastructure for conducting research of brain activity and behavior close to real world settings. For a press release see […]

Computational Properties of Prefrontal Cortex – Workshop

We hosted a superb 2018 CPPC (Computational Properties of Prefrontal Cortex) Workshop at Vanderbilt. The workshop attracted more than 60 emerging and established (neuro-)scientists about how the prefrontal cortex works – See the program and more at the www link CPPC2018. This year had special sessions on value-based decision making and uncertainty, social cognition, functional […]