Nilay Agarwal

Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main

In the Neurophysiological Department research concentrates on the structural and functional organization of the cerebral cortex, with the mammalian visual system serving as a model. The main question is how the numerous distributed processes in the neocortex are coordinated and bound together to give rise to coherent percepts and action. We pursue the hypothesis that one of the mechansims supporting dynamic coordination of distributed brain processes is based on the synchronisation of oscillatory activity. Recently, this approach has been extended to investigations of the role of abnormal oscillations and synchrony in neuropsychiatric disorders that involve dysfunctional cognition and behavior, such as Schizophrenia, Autism Spectrum Disorder and Alzheimer disease