Multielectrode Cortical Stimulation Selectively Induces Unidirectional Wave Propagation

Abstract

Cortical stimulation is emerging as an experimental tool in basic research and a promising therapy for a range of neuropsychiatric conditions. As multielectrode arrays enter clinical practice, the possibility of using spatiotemporal patterns of electrical stimulation to induce desired physiological patterns has become theoretically possible, but in practice can only be implemented by trial-and-error because of a lack of predictive models. Experimental evidence increasingly establishes travelling waves as fundamental to cortical information-processing, but we lack understanding how to control wave properties despite rapidly improving technologies. This study uses a hybrid biophysical-anatomical and neural-computational model to predict and understand how a simple pattern of cortical surface stimulation could induce directional traveling waves in excitatory cells via asymmetric activation of inhibitory cells. The ability to induce such activity via stimulation suggests the potential to treat a broad range of cognitive disorders and to shed light on the electrical nature of cortical functioning.

How the Brain Becomes the Mind: Can Thermodynamics Explain the Emergence and Nature of Emotions?

“…Cortical wave-like fluctuations, the so-called traveling waves [ 40 , 41 ], are the fundamental elements of cortical information processing [ 59 ]. It is also known that the activity patterns generated by cortico-cortical circuits actively shape the evoked cycle by modulating neural and perceptual sensitivity [ 60 ].…”