Vortices in brain waves

Abstract

Interactions by mutual excitation in neural populations in human and animal brains create a mesoscopic order parameter that is recorded in brain waves (electroencephalogram, EEG). Spatially and spectrally distributed oscillations are imposed on the background activity by inhibitory feedback in the gamma range (30-80 Hz). Beats recur at theta rates (3-7 Hz), at which the order parameter transiently approaches zero and microscopic activity becomes disordered. After these null spikes, the order parameter resurges and initiates a frame bearing a mesoscopic spatial pattern of gamma amplitude modulation that governs the microscopic activity, and that is correlated with behavior. The brain waves also reveal a spatial pattern of phase modulation in the form of a cone. Using the formalism of the dissipative many-body model of brain, we describe the null spikes and the accompanying phase cones as vortices.