One of the most interesting questions about oscillations to me is not about frequency or power. It is simpler. Why are some oscillations synaptically excitatory and other inhibitory?

 https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/jn.00119.2020
I have been asking this question from a couple directions, and the first one to make it to publication has to do with homeostasis.

The setup is a little nuanced….
One of the ways oscillations get described is as a modulator of firing. Like, AcH and other neuromodulators, in a sense, anyway.
Neuromodulator effects are, over the long timescales of minutes hours days counterbalanced by homeostasis. Homeostasis and oscillations as topic meanwhile seemed a completely open problem. 



So that is what we went after! We used numerical experiments to do it.
A common mechanism of action for intrinsic homeostasis is a Calcium sensor, and a classic example of this is in hippocampus. So that is what we simulated.
The powerful thing about modulation by oscillation is that the modulator and driver (other inputs) both use fast synaptic transmission.

This sets up a bit of trade-off between them, we think.

This tradeoff has sharp consequences when we begin to consider homeostasis.
But to consider homeostasis we must consider time, so we compare a very short four cycle oscillation to a tonic one, lasting many seconds. We also, as my first tweet suggested, considered to kinds of synapses- AMPA and GABA.
But to consider homeostasis we must consider time, so we compare a very short four cycle oscillation to a tonic one, lasting many seconds. We also, as my first tweet suggested, considered to kinds of synapses- AMPA and GABA.
But to consider homeostasis we must consider time, so we compare a very short four cycle oscillation to a tonic one, lasting many seconds. We also, as my first tweet suggested, considered to kinds of synapses- AMPA and GABA.
In other words our results suggest, “Homeostatic mechanisms may shape the type and duration of oscillatory modulation” :)
As far as we’re aware this is the first work to look at homeostasis and oscillations. Were proud to have published in J Neurophys.

We’re hoping it can inspire animal experiments to test the predictions we have made.

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/jn.00119.2020
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