Function
Neural synchronization can be modulated by task constraints, such as attention, and is thought to play a role in feature binding, neuronal communication, and motor coordination. Neuronal oscillations became a hot topic in neuroscience in the 1990s when the studies of the visual system of the brain by Gray, Singer and others appeared to support the neural binding hypothesis. According to this idea, synchronous oscillations in neuronal ensembles bind neurons representing different features of an object. For example, when a person looks at a tree, visual cortex neurons representing the tree trunk and those representing the branches of the same tree would oscillate in synchrony to form a single representation of the tree. This phenomenon is best seen in local field potentials which reflect the synchronous activity of local groups of neurons, but has also been shown in EEG and MEG recordings providing increasing evidence for a close relation between synchronous oscillatory activity and a variety of cognitive functions such as perceptual grouping.
Read more about this topic: Neural Oscillation
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“The art of living is to function in society without doing violence to one’s own needs or to the needs of others. The art of mothering is to teach the art of living to children.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“The intension of a proposition comprises whatever the proposition entails: and it includes nothing else.... The connotation or intension of a function comprises all that attribution of this predicate to anything entails as also predicable to that thing.”
—Clarence Lewis (1883–1964)
“Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.—The function of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)