Some brain disorders are hypothesized to have a dynamical origin; in
particular, it has been hypothesized that some symptoms of Parkinson's
disease are due to pathologically synchronized neural activity in the
basal ganglia region of the brain. This talk will describe several
different approaches for desynchronizing the activity of a group of
neurons, including maximizing the Lyapunov exponent associated with
their phase dynamics, optimal phase resetting, controlling the phase
density, and controlling the population to have clustered dynamics. It
is hoped that this work will ultimately lead to improved treatment of
Parkinson's disease via targeted electrical stimulation.