12 November 2020
10:00 - 11:30 AM
Virtually via Zoom
Axel Hutt (Strasbourg, France)

Loss of consciousness in general anaesthesia may be understood by de-noising the brain

Abstract: we investigated the spectral dynamics of encephalographic (EEG) beta-alpha oscillations, observed in human patients undergoing general anaesthesia. Based on previous own mathematical studies, we have assumed that additive random fluctuations may change the nonlinear interaction between neutrons yielding to new dynamic states. To this end, we modelled the effect of anaesthetics as a reduction of neural fluctuation intensity, and/or an increase in inhibitory synaptic gain in the thalamo-cortical circuit. Our analysis demonstrates that a non-linear transition, triggered by a simple decrease in neural fluctuation intensity, is sufficient to explain the clinically-observed appearance – and subsequent slowing – of the beta-alpha narrowband EEG peak. Taken together, our results show that such a non-linear transition results in functional fragmentation of cortical and thalamic populations; highly correlated intra-population dynamics triggered by anaesthesia decouple and isolate neural populations.


Brief Bio: Axel Hutt has studied Physics at the University of Stuttgart and received his Diploma under the supervision of Hermann Haken. In his PhD thesis in Theoretical Physics at the University of Stuttgart and the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig, Axel had worked on modeling electroencephalographic data (EEG) by low-dimensional differential equation systems. After several Postdoc positions in Germany and Canada in the field of computational neuroscience, he was awarded a permanent research position at INRIA Nancy in France in 2007 and Directeur de Recherche in 2015. During a 4-year sabbatical term at the German Weather Service he has worked on data assimilation techniques combining experimental data and mathematical models in an efficient way. Today, his work focuses on the combination of experimental data and mathematical models in computational neuroscience with applications to general anaesthesia and neurostimulation.

 


See below for link to join via zoom:


Topic: KCN Event: Axel Hutt

Time: Nov 12, 2020 10:00 Eastern Time (US and Canada)

https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/86711909021

Meeting ID: 867 1190 9021

Passcode: 600386


Recording available on kcnhub youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGzEmFdtVos&t=23s