Gamma-band oscillations arise from the interplay between neural excitation (E) and inhibition (I) and may provide a non-invasive window into the state of cortical circuitry. A bell-shaped modulation of gamma response power by increasing the intensity of sensory input was observed in animals and is thought to reflect neural gain control. Here we sought to find a similar input-output relationship in humans with MEG via modulating the intensity of a visual stimulation by changing the velocity/temporal-frequency of visual motion. In the first experiment, adult participants observed static and moving gratings. The frequency of the MEG gamma response monotonically increased with motion velocity whereas power followed a bell-shape. In the second experiment, on a large group of children and adults, we found that despite drastic developmental changes in frequency and power of gamma oscillations, the relative suppression at high motion velocities was scaled to the same range of values across the life-span. In light of animal and modeling studies, the modulation of gamma power and frequency at high stimulation intensities characterizes the capacity of inhibitory neurons to counterbalance increasing excitation in visual networks. Gamma suppression may thus provide a non-invasive measure of inhibitory-based gain control in the healthy and diseased brain.
Globally, the demand for improved health care delivery while managing escalating costs is a major challenge. Measuring the biomagnetic fields that emanate from the human brain already impacts the treatment of epilepsy, brain tumours and other brain disorders. This roadmap explores how superconducting technologies are poised to impact health care. Biomagnetism is the study of magnetic fields of biological origin. Biomagnetic fields are typically very weak, often in the femtotesla range, making their measurement challenging. The earliest in vivo human measurements were made with room-temperature coils. In 1963, Baule and McFee (1963 Am. Heart J. 55 95−6) reported the magnetic field produced by electric currents in the heart (‘magnetocardiography’), and in 1968, Cohen (1968 Science 161 784−6) described the magnetic field generated by alpha-rhythm currents in the brain (‘magnetoencephalography’). Subsequently, in 1970, Cohen et al (1970 Appl. Phys. Lett. 16 278–80) reported the recording of a magnetocardiogram using a Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID). Just two years later, in 1972, Cohen (1972 Science 175 664–6) described the use of a SQUID in magnetoencephalography. These last two papers set the scene for applications of SQUIDs in biomagnetism, the subject of this roadmap. The SQUID is a combination of two fundamental properties of superconductors. The first is flux quantization—the fact that the magnetic flux Φ in a closed superconducting loop is quantized in units of the magnetic flux quantum, Φ0 ≡ h/2e, ≈ 2.07 × 10−15 Tm2 (Deaver and Fairbank 1961 Phys. Rev. Lett. 7 43–6, Doll R and Näbauer M 1961 Phys. Rev. Lett. 7 51–2). Here, h is the Planck constant and e the elementary charge. The second property is the Josephson effect, predicted in 1962 by Josephson (1962 Phys. Lett. 1 251–3) and observed by Anderson and Rowell (1963 Phys. Rev. Lett. 10 230–2) in 1963. The Josephson junction consists of two weakly coupled superconductors separated by a tunnel barrier or other weak link. A tiny electric current is able to flow between the superconductors as a supercurrent, without developing a voltage across them. At currents above the ‘critical current’ (maximum supercurrent), however, a voltage is developed. In 1964, Jaklevic et al (1964 Phys. Rev. Lett. 12 159–60) observed quantum interference between two Josephson junctions connected in series on a superconducting loop, giving birth to the dc SQUID. The essential property of the SQUID is that a steady increase in the magnetic flux threading the loop causes the critical current to oscillate with a period of one flux quantum. In today’s SQUIDs, using conventional semiconductor readout electronics, one can typically detect a change in Φ corresponding to 10−6 Φ0 in one second. Although early practical SQUIDs were usually made from bulk superconductors, for example, niobium or Pb-Sn solder blobs, today’s devices are invariably made from thin superconducting films patterned with photolithography or even electron lithography. An extensive descriptio...
We have observed a few distinct anomalous avoided level crossings and voltage dependent transitions in the excited state spectrum of an Al/AlOx/Al Cooper-pair box (CPB). The device was measured at 40 mK in the 15 - 50 GHz frequency range. We find that a given level crosses the CPB spectrum at two different gate voltages; the frequency and splitting size of the two crossings differ and the splitting size depends on the Josephson energy of the CPB. We show that this behavior is not only consistent with the CPB being coupled to discrete charged "two-level" quantum systems which move atomic distances in the CPB junctions but that the spectra provide new information about the fluctuators, which is not available from phase qubit spectra of anomalous avoided levels. In particular by fitting a model Hamiltonian to our data, we extract microscopic parameters for each fluctuator, including well asymmetry, tunneling amplitude, and the minimum hopping distance for each fluctuator. The tunneling rates range from less than 3.5 to 13 GHz, which represent values between 5% and 150% of the well asymmetry, and the dipole moments give a minimum hopping distance of 0.3 to 0.8 Anstrom. We have also found that these discrete two-level systems have a pronounced effect on the relaxation time (T1) of the quantum states of the CPB and hence can be a source of dissipation for superconducting quantum bits
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