local field potential

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a type of electrophysiological signal reflecting the summed synaptic and membrane currents of a local population of neurons near an extracellular electrode, providing a measure of local neural population activity distinct from the individual action potentials captured by spike sorting; LFPs are recorded by low-pass filtering the broadband extracellular signal below approximately 300 Hz and contain oscillatory components at multiple frequency bands — delta (1–4 Hz), theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (8–13 Hz), beta (13–30 Hz), and gamma (30–100 Hz) — each linked to different aspects of neural computation and behaviour; LFP oscillations serve as indices of network synchrony: theta oscillations in hippocampus organise spatial navigation and memory encoding; gamma oscillations reflect local excitation and attentional modulation; beta oscillations in motor cortex and basal ganglia are linked to movement suppression and are pathologically exaggerated in Parkinson's disease; LFPs can be recorded chronically from implanted electrodes with greater stability than individual spikes, making them a practical signal for long-term BCI applications and for sensing in closed-loop deep brain stimulators

Examples

• Local field potential recordings from prefrontal cortex revealed theta-gamma coupling during working memory.
• The closed-loop DBS system used local field potential beta power as a biomarker to adjust stimulation in real time.