Network Neuroscience Highlights Brain Connectivity

The new article in Wired on Network Neuroscience's contributions to our deeper understanding of how the brain really works is a very useful introduction to this facinating new field that helps integrate biomedical engineering with cognitive neuroscience. It is important to note that the tools they are using are mostly functional measures, of water and blood flow to identify network activity. What I hope they will begin to use quantitative EEG dynamics more and more to elucidate the mechanisms of action in brain networks at rest and under task.  Our research in this area has provided a model for understanding individual response patterns in terms of variations in dominant frequency activity. When measuring the EEG at rest we can start to see specific patterns of electrical activity that results in a particular frequency being produced. The actual frequencies are constrained both in terms of absolute range but also their variability within that range. For example, person with generalized anxiety disorder may generate a pattern of activity that is limited to between 6-12 hz with occasional bursts of higher frequency activity in the mid to upper 20hz range, while the person with major depression generates more 2-7hz activity with very little variability. We can measure this activity without using radioactive tracers and extremely expensive devices that suck up tremendous amounts of energy and some often requiring large amounts of Helium.

We look forward collaboration with network neuroscientists and providing them with the other side of the neuronal equation where you work to understand and then influence the brain's electrical activity in order to modify its chemistry.

click here for the Wired article: ​https://www.wired.com/story/a-radical-new-model-of-the-brain-illuminates-its-wiring/