“Overly synchronous neural activity is known to play a role in epilepsy, and now we suspect that different pathologies of synchrony may contribute to many brain disorders, including disorders of perception, attention, memory, and motor control. In an orchestra, one instrument played out of synchrony with the rest can disrupt the coherence of the entire piece of music.
The consequence of a laminar separation of these frequencies, as we observed, may be to allow superficial layers to represent external sensory information with faster frequencies, and for deep layers to represent internal cognitive states with slower frequencies. The high-level implication is that the cortex has multiple mechanisms involving both anatomy and oscillations to separate ‘external’ from ‘internal’ information.
Under this theory, imbalances between
high- and low-frequency oscillations can lead to either attention deficits such as
ADHD, when the higher frequencies dominate and too much sensory information gets in, or
delusional disorders such as schizophrenia, when the low frequency oscillations are too strong and not enough sensory information gets in.
“The proper balance between the
top-down control signals and the bottom-up sensory signals is important for everything the cortex does,” Miller says. “When the balance goes awry, you get a wide variety of neuropsychiatric disorders.”
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