Brain states--brain rhythms--brain responses.

Abstract

Oscillation and resonance of electrical activity of certain sets of neurons in the brain and spinal cord is an important factor in the organization of those properties of connectivity that must be tuned by function. Once connectivity has reached some degree of specificity important biological and chemical events must occur to stabilize synaptic inputs and localize excitable sites to particular areas of the cell surface. It has been proposed that intrinsic electroresponsiveness generates internal computational states that serves as a reference frame or context for incoming information. The intrinsic activity is proposed to be a part of the vectorial coordinate space that sensory and motor transformations occur in context of a particular functional state such as attention and expectation that can modify the relevance of a given sensory input. The most significant mechanism in generation of oscillation properties of the brain are the intrinsic properties of individual neurons. This concept presents a shift of emphasis from properties of circuits to properties of single neurons. Feedback circuits and synchronization of single oscillators into sets of coupled oscillators which in turn generates field potentials such as (EEG) and evoked response (ER).