Abstract
A central goal of neuroscience is to determine how the brain's relatively static anatomy can support dynamic cortical function, i.e., cortical function that varies according to task demands. In pursuit of this goal, scientists have produced a large number of experimental results and established influential conceptual frameworks, in particular communication-through-coherence (CTC) and gating-by-inhibition (GBI), but these data and frameworks have not provided a parsimonious view of the principles that underlie cortical function. Here I synthesize these existing experimental results and the CTC and GBI frameworks, and propose the function-through-biased-oscillations (FBO) hypothesis as a model to understand dynamic cortical function. The FBO hypothesis suggests that oscillatory voltage amplitude is the principal measurement that directly reflects cortical excitability, that asymmetries in voltage amplitude explain a range of brain signal phenomena, and that predictive variations in such asymmetric oscillations provide a simple and general model for information routing that can help to explain dynamic cortical function.
Highlights
Humans are able to rapidly adapt their behavior based on different task demands
I will refer to the framework that encompasses these two principles as the function-throughbiased-oscillations (FBO) hypothesis throughout this paper
The First Principle: Biased Oscillations Link Cortical Excitability to a Range of Brain Signal Phenomena The first principle of the FBO hypothesis begins with the proposal that the instantaneous voltage amplitude of oscillations, rather than oscillatory power or phase, is the principal measurement that directly reflects cortical excitability
Summary
Humans are able to rapidly adapt their behavior based on different task demands. While research over the past decades has shown that the structure of the brain is plastic, such as that shown in rapid changes in dendritic boutons during learning (Moser et al, 1994; Piccioli and Littleton, 2014), the long time scale, typically minutes, for such plastic changes in anatomy cannot readily explain changes in function on the time scale of seconds. While existing theories have made important progress, our understanding how the microscopic concept of cortical excitability relates to different types of macroscopic brain signal measurements and in turn to organized behavior still appears to be incomplete It is currently unclear how oscillatory power and phase may interrelate with each other, and if and how the conceptual frameworks proposed by Fries and Jensen can be reconciled. Because of these important issues, different neural or behavioral domains are usually described by independent sets of relatively narrow scientific explanations, which tends to force scientists in a particular discipline to stay within and to conform to the corresponding set of explanations. I will refer to the framework that encompasses these two principles as the function-throughbiased-oscillations (FBO) hypothesis throughout this paper
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