Thalamocortical Assemblies
Alain Destexhe, Terrence Sejknowski
Abstract
Abstract Thalamocortical Assemblies: Sleep Spindles, Slow Waves, & Epileptic Discharges explores the underlying neural mechanisms involved in generating low-frequency oscillations through interacting neural assemblies in the thalamus and the cortex. During sleep, the mammalian brain generates an orderly progression of low-frequency oscillations as the brain moves from sleep onset into deep sleep. Moreover, oscillations are involved in the consolidation of experiences in long-term memory during sleep. Thalamocortical Assemblies overviews the properties of ion channels, synaptic interactions, and intrinsic cellular mechanisms into biophysical models of neural oscillations in local circuits and distributed networks. It also tackles the key mechanisms of sleep spindles and how they are hijacked by epileptic seizures.