Gross electrocortical activity as a linear wave phenomenon with variable temporal damping, regulated by ascending catecholamine neurones.

We report critical tests for a theory of electrocortical wave processes, in which telencephalic dendritic potentials reflect the mass action of coupled oscillatory circuits exhibiting complicated and unspecified non-linearities, the whole system being driven by active cell firing. Specific assumptions were: stochastic independence for instantaneous coupling parameters in the system, an individual central tendency to the cycle time for each circuit, and the maintenance of steady state conditions. Application of the central limit theorem to the state transition matrix shows that the gross electrocortical waves should be linear waves, exhibiting a multitude of invariant resonant modes, with the natural frequencies of all the modes being clustered about a smaller number of center values. Ascending brain-stem neurones of at least the dopaminergic and noradrenergic classes should regulate both the power of noise-like signals driving the telencephalic resonant patterns, and the temporal damping of each resonance. We devised tests which involved between hemisphere comparisons of electrocortical spectra, before and after unilateral lesion of transhypothalamic ascending fibres, thus obtaining ratio power changes attributable to post lesion asymmetry of damping and driving, in modes of equivalent left-right center-frequencies. These ratio spectra were curve-fitted to an approximate theoretical expression, and the parameters obtained enabled tests of several specific predictions. Estimates of the center values for resonant mode frequencies, comparison of the relative changes in left/right phase with that expected from the ratio changes in power, and estimates of the surface-to-signal transformation of left and right signals made by a back-calculation, all conform to expectation from the theory, and are consistent across lesion of different types of ascending neurone.