" ... Understanding the generation of beta oscillations is important to improve treatments for Parkinson’s disease. Competing theories exist for how these oscillations are generated in the affected brain circuits, which include the motor cortex and a set of subcortical nuclei called the basal ganglia. This paper suggests two hypotheses for the generation of beta oscillations. The first hypothesis is that beta oscillations are generated in the motor cortex, and the basal ganglia resonate to the cortical input. The second hypothesis additionally proposes that feedback from the basal ganglia to cortex is critically important for the presence of the oscillations. We show that the models can successfully account for a wide range of experimental data concerning the presence of beta oscillations in Parkinson’s disease."

Region(s) or Organism(s): Subthalamic Nucleus; Basal ganglia

Model Concept(s): Parkinson's; Beta oscillations; Activity Patterns; Oscillations

Simulation Environment: MATLAB

Implementer(s): Pavlides, Alex

References:

Pavlides A, Hogan SJ, Bogacz R. (2015). Computational Models Describing Possible Mechanisms for Generation of Excessive Beta Oscillations in Parkinson's Disease. PLoS computational biology. 11 [PubMed]