Alexandre Andrade
IBEB / FCUL

Abstract: Brain rhythms have been known for a long time to present a very marked frequency specificity. Whilst oscillations ranging from a few Hertz to below 100 Hz (delta to gamma) are well studied, very low (around 0.1 Hz and below) and very high (above 100 Hz) frequencies have been somewhat neglected. In this talk, I will briefly venture into the realm of very high frequencies and discuss their relevance in the specific context of epilepsy. However, I will focus on very low oscillations and I will argue that this is a very exciting research topic with implications in inter-regional brain connectivity, decision-making, autonomic regulation, motor behavior and psychophysical performance. I will show a sample of recent and ongoing research and I will discuss some of the challenges associated with measuring and analysing very slow oscillations with electroencepahlography and functional magnetic resonance imaging.