Alpha oscillations and working memory
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1
University of Bochum, Germany
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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, Türkiye, 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
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Received:
27 Nov 2008;
Published Online:
27 Nov 2008.
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Correspondence:
Daniel Jokisch, University of Bochum, Bochum, Germany, Daniel.Jokisch@ruhr-uni-bochum.de