October 3, 2008- 1:00 p.m.

Location: Main Auditorium, Toronto Western Hospital
**Note change of day, time and location for this seminar**

David Terman, Mathematical Biosciences Institute & Ohio State University
A model for neuronal firing patterns in the basal ganglia

The basal ganglia are a group of nuclei that play an important role in the generation of movement. Dysfunction of the basal ganglia is associated with movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease and Huntington's chorea. Structures within the basal ganglia have, in fact, been the target of recent therapeutic surgical procedures including deep brain stimulation. Numerous experiments have demonstrated that neurons within the basal ganglia display a variety of dynamic behaviors; moreover, patterns of neuronal activity differ between normal and pathological states. Neither the origins of these neural firing patterns nor the mechanisms that underlie the beneficial effects of deep brain stimulation are well understood. In this lecture, I will describe a recent model for neuronal activity within the basal ganglia. Geometric dynamical systems methods will be used to analyze the activity patterns. I will then discuss how the model has been used to propose mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of deep brain stimulation.