The United States of America, As Represented by the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services

The United States of America, As Represented by the Secretary of Defense, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology

Dietmar Plenz

Giulio Tononi

Oren Shriki

Christian Meisel

The present invention is directed to a method of continuously monitoring neuronal avalanches in a subject comprising (a) determining a deviation in avalanche exponent (&#x3b1;) or branching parameter (&#x3c3;) from a predetermined value at rest, wherein the pre-determined value of &#x3b1; is a slope of a size distribution of the synchronized neuronal activity and the predetermined value is &#x2212;3/2 and the pre-determined value of &#x3c3; is a ratio of successively propagated synchronized neuronal activity and the predetermined value is 1; and (b) repeating step (a) one or more times to continuously monitor neuronal avalanches in a subject. The invention also features methods of determining or monitoring the degree of sleep deprivation in a subject, methods of identifying subjects that are susceptible to a sleep disorder and methods of diagnosing a sleep disorder in a subject.

Monitoring the effects of sleep deprivation using neuronal avalanches

Method and system for determining a cognitive enhancement and/or anti-epileptic effect comprising: detecting synchronized neuronal activity in neuronal tissue (), monitoring spreading of the synchronized neuronal activity (), determining a parameter () indicative of the closeness of the synchronized neuronal activity to the critical state and comparing () the parameter to a predetermined value.

Growing community of inventors

Chevy Chase, MD, United States of America

Dietmar Plenz