Paper detail

Broken chaotic clocks of brain neurons and depression

Irregular spiking time-series obtained in vitro and in vivo from singular brain neurons of different types of rats are analyzed by mapping to telegraph signals. Since the neural information is coded in the length of the interspike intervals and their positions on the time axis, this mapping is the most direct way to map a spike train into a signal which allows a proper application of the Fourier transform methods. This analysis shows that healthy neurons firing has periodic and chaotic deterministic clocks while for the rats representing genetic animal model of human depression these neuron clocks might be broken, that results in decoherence between the depressive neurons firing. Since depression is usually accompanied by a narrowing of consciousness this specific decoherence can be considered as a cause of the phenomenon of the consciousness narrowing as well. This suggestion is also supported by observation of the large-scale chaotic coherence of the posterior piriform and entorhinal cortices' electrical activity at transition from anesthesia to the waking state with full consciousness.