Employing experiments that range from studying isolated pairs of lobster neurons to looking at electrical and magnetic signals from human test subjects, physicists are applying concepts from nonlinear systems, chaos and control theory to improve our understanding of neuronal dynamics. Exemplifying this approach, a collaboration in Germany between neurologists at the University of Düsseldorf and physicists at the University of Potsdam has recently demonstrated the potential of a new nonlinear analysis technique—phase synchronization—for neuronal studies. With this tool, the researchers found evidence in magnetoencephalography (MEG) data for synchronous activity between different parts of the brain and between the brain and the muscles during the tremor of a patient with Parkinson's disease (see the figure below).
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March 1999
March 01 1999
Phase Synchronization May Reveal Communication Pathways in Brain Activity
How is the firing of individual neurons translated into thought, sensory perception or movement? Physicists are joining the quest for answers.
Physics Today 52 (3), 17–19 (1999);
Citation
Richard Fitzgerald; Phase Synchronization May Reveal Communication Pathways in Brain Activity. Physics Today 1 March 1999; 52 (3): 17–19. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.882606
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