IUBio

Q: cellular basis of sensorimotor rhythms

Ron Blue rcb1 at LEX.LCCC.EDU
Thu May 9 09:23:23 EST 1996



On Wed, 8 May 1996, Mark Laubach wrote:

> At 05:51 PM 5/8/96 -400, you wrote:
> 
> >I believe the 20 hertz is a carrier wave.  Low frequency carrier waves in 
> >electronic have a greater range in transmission.  So 20 hertz is a carrier
> >wave for olifaction.  The high frequency osscilations are the actual 
> >processing of the olifactory chemical.  This should be gaussian and the 
> >real identification should be able to be calculated.  By tuning in advance 
> >the nervous system to 20 hertz by entrainment the basic signal for a odor 
> >may be deduced from the background signal.  My believe is due to a global
> >theory of correlational opponent-processing.  Ron Blue
> 
> Maybe 10-20 Hz serves as a carrier, but for what specifically ?  My
> interpretation of 10-20 Hz in motor systems in mammals is based on
> observations from the 1950s that showed there are variations in the eeg of
> human subjects in the 10-20 Hz range that are associated with the length of
> the reaction-time.  One could say that this rhythm may be related to the
> "mu" rhythm, more recently described as a preparatory brain rhythm
> associated with active movement (e.g., Hari's group) and localized to the
> sensori-motor areas of cortex and even localized to a few regions of the cat
> cortex by Buser's group. Is this rhythm a carrier for information related to
> preparatory set?  How is it related to the 40 Hz oscillation in cortex?  If
> other areas of the nervous system that are connected with cortical ensembles
> also show this rhythm then are they being "tuned" for the delivery of an
> important cortical "message"?
> 
> Thanks for the refs.
> 
> -mark
Yes, your assessment is correct in my opinion.  A carrier wave for multiple 
function would be expected.  The actual stimulus signal would be phased 
into the multiple gaussian reference carrier waves.  Difficult to prove!  
That was why the idea of entrainment got me excited.  If it works, then 
one could set the carrier wave for the different functions by 
entrainment, and use a standard start stop stimulus and decode what that 
would mean in terms of frequencies to the brain.  This would be 
especially interesting to odors!
Ron Blue
rcb1 at lex.lccc.edu




More information about the Neur-sci mailing list

Send comments to us at biosci-help [At] net.bio.net