Coupling Functions in Neuroscience

TL;DR

This paper reviews the use of coupling functions to analyze neural interactions at the neuron and brainwave levels, highlighting their theoretical and methodological aspects and broader implications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of coupling functions in neuroscience, emphasizing their application to neural and cross-frequency brain interactions.

Findings

Coupling functions effectively reveal neural interaction mechanisms.

The chapter connects theoretical and methodological perspectives.

Implications extend beyond neuroscience to other complex systems.

Abstract

The interactions play one of the central roles in the brain mediating various processes and functions. They are particularly important for the brain as a complex system that has many different functions from the same structural connectivity. When studying such neural interactions the coupling functions are very suitable, as inherently they can reveal the underlaying functional mechanism. This chapter overviews some recent and widely used aspects of coupling functions for studying neural interactions. Coupling functions are discussed in connection to two different levels of brain interactions - that of neuron interactions and brainwave cross-frequency interactions. Aspects relevant to this from both, theory and methods, are presented. Although the discussion is based on neuroscience, there are strong implications from, and to, other fields as well.