Investigating Transient Patterns of Human Brain Activity in Normal Ageing

Abstract

The global population is ageing rapidly, and with the increasing population age, comes an increasing need to understand the neurophysiological effects of ageing. Human brain activity consists of a complex combination of spontaneous transient bursts of neural activity with varying spatial and temporal characteristics. The characteristics of these transient bursts change during task performance and normal ageing in ways that can inform about the underlying neurophysiology. This thesis investigates the spatiotemporal characteristics and cortical sources of typical and atypical transient bursts in a large cohort of healthy participants and relates the findings to participant age. The thesis is comprised of three projects, each of which introduces and validates novel methods for investigating transient patterns of human brain activity in normal ageing.