Investigation reveals links between synaptic receptors and brain oscillations in healthy individuals, suggesting important implications for understanding brain function.
Stoof et al. investigate why distinct brain regions exhibit characteristic oscillatory frequencies, such as occipital alpha and frontal beta rhythms. Their work elegantly links openly available intracranial EEG spectra from 106 epilepsy patients to synaptic receptor densities from available autoradiography maps in three healthy donors. In the framework of dynamic causal modelling, they show that regional oscillations emerge from balanced combinations of excitatory (AMPAR, NMDAR) and inhibitory receptors (GABAR A or B), while neuromodulatory receptors exert subtler influences.
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Baud et al. (2026) studied this question.
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