Tuning in to Slow Events

Abstract

This chapter addresses entrainments in various slow events. It challenges the idea that only slow events that are isochronous are capable of entraining neural oscillations. It tackles entrainments in events that afford quasi-isochronous driving rhythms as well as in events that are markedly non-isochronous (but coherent). Coherent sequences have time patterns as in short-short-long or long-short-short sequences. This is an important chapter as it differentiates two entrainment protocols: traditional mode-locking versus transient mode-locking. Traditional mode-locking is familiar; it describes entrainment when neither the driving rhythm nor the driven rhythm change significantly (fluctuations are all right). Traditional mode-locking is governed by a single (global) attractor. By contrast, transient mode-locking refers to fleeting entrainments to changing driving rhythms, given the persisting period of driven oscillation. This form of mode-locking delivers a series of (local) attractors. This chapter develops these ideas and provides many examples.