Neurons Get the Beat and Keep It Going in Drumrolls

A neuron firing deep in the brain might sound a little like: Drumroll…cymbal crash! Drumroll…cymbal crash! Repeat. With emphasis on “repeat,” according to a new study.

What used to look like fleeting cacophonies of electrical impulses in the brain is looking to neuroscience researchers more and more like a sustained matrix of electronic percussion. For years, they have been analyzing patterns hidden in neurons’ electrical buzzes, and now, they have revealed in neurons continued stretches of orderly drumroll-like rumblings speckled with thrashing impulses, or spikes, that stimulate neighboring neurons.

“These signaling patterns last a lot longer than we thought,” said Annabelle Singer, an assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Singer led the in vivo study on mice together with Ed Boyden, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology….”