Brain oscillations: ideal scenery to understand the neurovascular coupling

Abstract

Purpose of review: This review discusses our current understanding of the neurovascular coupling in the neocortex with particular emphasis on brain oscillations.

Recent findings: After two decades of developments in neuroimaging, we do not know thus far how blood perfusion is regulated regionally in our brain, a statement endorsed by the existing uncertainty about the strategies it employs for dynamic housekeeping and oxidative metabolism readjustment during evoked and ongoing processing. What is more, we have no clear idea why such a regulation is inhomogeneous for the entire neocortex, with special distinctions in those brain areas belonging to what has been named the resting default networks. In the light of recent findings about blood supplying mechanisms during brain oscillations, we have to regrettably admit that further experiments need yet to be carried out to have a better understanding of the neurovascular coupling in the cerebral cortex of mammals.

Summary: Understanding the neurovascular coupling, and hence the associated blood oxygenation level-dependent signal, will help us to design revolutionary therapies for several brain disorders as well as to establish new protocols for their diagnosis through neuroimaging. The brain oscillations provide us an ideal scenario for that end.