Fries, Pascal TICS Mechanism for Cognitive Dynamics Coherence 2005 TICS
<p>Sep 28, 2010 1:43 PM
 
pdf is online... opinion piece in TICS  Pascal Fries
October 2005
 
A mechanism for cognitive dynamics:
neuronal communication through
neuronal coherence
 
ABSTRACT
At any one moment, many neuronal groups in our brain
are active. Microelectrode recordings have characterized
the activation of single neurons and fMRI has unveiled
brain-wide activation patterns. <b>Now it is time to understand</b>
<b>how the many active neuronal groups interact</b>
<b>with each other and how their communication is flexibly</b>
<b>modulated to bring about our cognitive dynamics</b>. I
hypothesize that neuronal communication is mechanistically
subserved by <b>neuronal coherence. Activated</b>
<b>neuronal groups oscillate and thereby undergo rhythmic</b>
<b>excitability fluctuations that produce temporal windows</b>
<b>for communication. Only coherently oscillating neuronal</b>
<b>groups can interact effectively, </b>because their communication
windows for input and for output are open at the
same times. Thus, a flexible pattern of coherence defines
a flexible communication structure, which subserves
our cognitive flexibility.
 
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