Meet Kopell
“Connecting the Dots: Propofol, Parkinson’s disease and brain rhythms”
Nancy Kopell received her PhD at UC Berkekely in Mathematics in 1967. Currently, she is Professor of Mathematics and Co-Director of the Center for BioDynamics, an interdisciplinary research and training center, at Boston University. Dr. Kopell studies the dynamics of the nervous system, trying to understand how individual neurons talk with one another, and how the network of neurons in the brain produces the patterns of activity that correspond to thinking and moving. She uses math to try to understand how the structure and behavior of individual cells lead to network behavior that cannot be explained just by measurements from individual cells. Dr. Kopell has received many honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship, and is a member of the National Academy of Science.
Seminar Abstract
“Connecting the Dots: Propofol, Parkinson’s disease and brain rhythms”
Rhythms of the nervous system are produced in all cognitive states, and have been shown to be highly associated with a myriad of cognitive tasks. Thus, changes in these rhythms, however they come about, are likely to change the ability to do such tasks. This talk focuses on the beta (12-30 Hz) and alpha (9-11) rhythms, and pathological states due to anesthesia and PD; it is about three related studies, the latter two emerging from the first one. The first concerns an early stage of anesthesia, in which, paradoxically, the subject gets more excited and disoriented. With low propofol, the brain rhythms show an increase in beta oscillations, which in normal awake state is associated with brain functions including motor preparation and higher-order processing. The second concerns the beta oscillations associated with abnormal motor control in Parkinson’s disease. The relationship between the two phenomena can be seen from the underlying physiology using modeling as well as experiments. Finally, the first story led to consideration of higher doses of propofol, at which consciousness is lost, and using experimental data to get new ideas about the physiological basis for the loss of consciousness. Again, the focus on relevant physiology of the rhythms is what led, though modeling, to the new insights. Related new work on other states of consciousness, such as coma, may be discussed.
