On-off intermittency of thalamo-cortical neuronal network oscillations in the electroencephalogram of rodents with genetic predisposition to absence epilepsy

Spike-wave discharges are electroencephalographic hallmarks of absence epilepsy. Spike-wave discharges are known to originate from thalamo-cortical neuronal network that normally produces sleep spindle oscillations. Although both sleep spindles and spike-wave discharges are considered as thalamo-cortical oscillations, functional relationship between them is still uncertain. The present study describes temporal dynamics of spike-wave discharges and sleep spindles as determined in long-time electroencephalograms (EEG) recorded in WAG/Rij rat model of absence epilepsy. We have proposed the wavelet-based method for the automatic detection of spike-wave discharges, sleep spindles (10–15Hz) and 5–9Hz oscillations in EEG. It was found that non-linear dynamics of spike-wave discharges and sleep spindles fits well to the law of ’on-off intermittency’. Intermittency in sleep spindles and spike-wave discharges implies that (1) temporal dynamics of these oscillations are deterministic in nature, and (2) it might be controlled by a system-level mechanism responsible for circadian modulation of neuronal network activity.

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