Controlling Brain Networks Through Oscillatory Synchrony

Psychiatric disorders arise from dysfunctional communication in distributed brain networks. We do not know, however, what "dysfunctional communication" means at a physiologic level, or how to reliably restore healthy communication patterns. One dominant theory argues for communication through synchrony: that when large populations of neurons fire with reliable (coherent) timing relative to each other, they are more likely to propagate action potentials (information).