Neural Communication: Weak Electrical Fields In The Brain Help Neurons Fire Together

[Moontanman]

Neural Communication: Weak Electrical Fields in the Brain Help Neurons Fire Together

 

Ephaptic coupling leads to coordinated spiking of nearby neurons, as measured using a 12-pipette electrophysiology setup developed in the laboratory of coauthor Henry Markram. (Credit: Image from Figure 4 in Anastassiou et., Nature Neuroscience, 2011)

 

ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2011) — The brain -- awake and sleeping -- is awash in electrical activity, and not just from the individual pings of single neurons communicating with each other. In fact, the brain is enveloped in countless overlapping electric fields, generated by the neural circuits of scores of communicating neurons. The fields were once thought to be an "epiphenomenon, a 'bug' of sorts, occurring during neural communication," says neuroscientist Costas Anastassiou, a postdoctoral scholar in biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110202132617.htm