Alpha oscillations and working memory

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Alpha oscillations and working memory Daniel Jokisch1* and O. Jensen2 1 University of Bochum, Germany 2 Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands Activity in the alpha band has been found to be strongly modulated in working memory tasks. However, its functional role is still under debate. Posterior alpha activity has been proposed to reflect cortical idling or functional inhibition. In the context of working memory operations, it has been found that alpha activity increases parametrically with memory load during retention of faces in the Sternberg task. This finding is consistent with the notion that alpha activity reflects functional inhibition of the dorsal visual stream. Further support for the inhibition hypothesis was provided by the finding that alpha power in the dorsal visual stream increases during retention of the identity of faces but not during retention of the spatial orientation of faces. Moreover, when a visual array is presented bilaterally but only items in one hemifield have to be retained, maintenance of these items results in an asymmetry of posterior alpha power during the retention interval with higher alpha power in the ipsilateral hemisphere. Other studies point to a direct computational role of posterior alpha activity. Based on the finding that long-range coherence in the alpha band correlates with perceptual and cross-modal binding, alpha activity has been proposed as a mechanism for controlling interaction between brain regions. Conference: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Turkey, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Symposium 10: Alpha Oscillations in Cognition? Citation: Jokisch D and Jensen O (2008). Alpha oscillations and working memory. Conference Abstract: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.046 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 27 Nov 2008; Published Online: 27 Nov 2008. * Correspondence: Daniel Jokisch, University of Bochum, Bochum, Germany, Daniel.Jokisch@ruhr-uni-bochum.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Daniel Jokisch O. Jensen Google Daniel Jokisch O. Jensen Google Scholar Daniel Jokisch O. Jensen PubMed Daniel Jokisch O. Jensen Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.