Ph.D. (in Psychophysiology) 1998, Moscow State University.

Ph.D.Dissertation Projects:

• Time-spatial organization of human EEG segment's structure (Andrew A. Fingelkurts)
• Some regularities of human EEG spectral patterns dynamics during cognitive activity (Alexander A. Fingelkurts).

Full CV available here.

Research Activities

The new emerging and interdisciplinary field of non-linear dynamics offers new strategies and paradigms for understanding such a complex systems like the human brain and its relation to behavior and mind. For example, it now appears that pattern formation and self-organization in nonequilibrium physical, chemical and biological systems may be governed by a number of general principles. Theories of brain dynamics based on EEG/MEG activity get special attention because EEG/MEG is an integrative biological signals resulting from the summated coactivation of the neurophysiological substrate, and they also strongly correlated with cognitive states and functions as assessed at the behavioral level.

Neural oscillations, which comprise EEG/MEG, exhibit large variability in both amplitude and frequency domains and this variability has quasi-stationary quantity. However, still, the dynamic nature of the fluctuations of brain oscillations has remained unclear. It was shown that in the phenomenon of the EEG/MEG spectral variability it is not only the stochastic fluctuations of the EEG/MEG parameters, but also the temporal structure of the signal that is reflected. This may indicate that the EEG/MEG spectral variability may be functional (Fingelkurts et al., 2002).

Together with our colleagues, we have developed the frame hypothesis that the regularities of short-term spectral transformations reflect additional information on the fast functional dynamics of brain information processing. Our findings suggest that the multi-variability of neuronal nets is discrete in time, and limited by the dynamics of the short quasi-stable brain states (Fingelkurts et al., 2004). An interesting phenomenon was described: the co-existence of a high multi-variability of the EEG parameters with a simultaneous stabilization of these parameters in time. Perhaps, the high multi-variability of spectral patterns indicates a wide range of the possible variations in current brain state or activity. On the other hand, a temporary stabilization in the spectral patterns reflects the maintaining of the relative stability in the neurodynamics within that particular time interval on both a micro- and macro-level. Thus, the brain dynamics may be viewed here as balancing between multivariability and metastability (Fingelkurts et al., 2003).

These research formed the basis for us to understand how information about the "objective" physical entities of the external world can be integrated, and how unified and coherent mental states (or Gestalts) can be established in the internal entities of distributed neuronal systems. We are developing a unified methodological and conceptual basis for a possible mechanism of how the transient synchronization of brain operations may construct the unified and relatively stable neural states, which underlie mental states (Fingelkurts & Fingelkurts, 2001).

It was shown in the work of our colleagues and us that the sequence of metastable spatial EEG/MEG mosaics does exist and probably reflects the rapid stabilization periods of the interrelation of large neuron systems. At the EEG/MEG level this is reflected in the stabilization of quasi-stationary segments on corresponding recording sites. Within the introduced framework (brain operational architectonics), physical brain processes and psychological processes are considered as two basic aspects of a single whole informational brain state.

We hypothesize that the process of operational synchrony leads to the emergence of nonconscious and 'raw' mental images, which after semantic-conceptual binding among each other may cause awareness and full consciousness (Fingelkurts & Fingelkurts, 2001).

Other Interests and Activities

We are also interested in Philosophy, Psychology, Theology, Human Sexuality, Semantics & Semiotics, and Art

Publications

Lectures/Courses/Seminars

Methodology & Tools