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Editorial| Volume 62, ISSUE 3, P190-191, August 01, 2007

What Do Disturbances in Neural Synchrony Tell Us About Autism?

  • Peter J. Uhlhaas
    Affiliations
    Department of Neurophysiology, Max-Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Laboratory for Neurophysiology and Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
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  • Wolf Singer
    Affiliations
    Department of Neurophysiology, Max-Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
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      Most of the brain’s cognitive and executive functions are based on the coordinated interactions of large numbers of neurons that are distributed within and across different specialized brain areas. Transient synchronization of neuronal discharges in the beta (13–30 Hz) and gamma (30–80 Hz) frequency ranges has been proposed as one possible mechanism to dynamically bind widely distributed sets of neurons into functionally coherent ensembles that represent the neural correlates of a cognitive content or an executive program (
      • Singer W.
      Neuronal synchrony: A versatile code for the definition of relations?.
      ). This hypothesis is supported by a large number of studies that have demonstrated that neural synchrony is involved in cognitive functions that require precise coordination of distributed neural activity, such as perceptual organization, memory, and attention (

      Fries P, Nikolić D, Singer W (in press): The Gamma-Cycle. Trends Neurosci.

      ).
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      1. Fries P, Nikolić D, Singer W (in press): The Gamma-Cycle. Trends Neurosci.

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