title: The cortical activation model (CAM).
abstract: The Cortical Activation Model (CAM) is an attempt to explain whether an internally or externally paced event reveals an event-related desynchronization (ERD) or event-related synchronization (ERS) in a specific frequency band. It is assumed that the amplitude of network-specific oscillations depends on, in addition to other factors, the number of neurons available for synchronization and the excitability level of neurons and forms a bell-shaped curve with a maximum of oscillatory activity at a certain balance of both factors. Depending on the baseline level of cortical activation (CA) and the location of the "working point" (WP), a sudden change of activation can induce either ERD or ERS in a given area.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI-Lab), Institute of Knowledge Discovery, Graz University of Technology, Krenngasse 37, A-8010 Graz, Austria. pfurtscheller@tugraz.at
authors.forename: Gert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pfurtscheller
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D003243:Consciousness; D003344:Cortical Synchronization; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans