Beyond pulsed inhibition: Alpha oscillations modulate attenuation and amplification of neural activity in the awake resting state.

ABSTRACT: Alpha oscillations are a distinctive feature of the awake resting state of the human brain. However, their functional role in resting-state neuronal dynamics remains poorly understood. Here we show that, during resting wakefulness, alpha oscillations drive an alternation of attenuation and amplification bouts in neural activity. Our analysis indicates that inhibition is activated in pulses that last for a single alpha cycle and gradually suppress neural activity, while excitation is successively enhanced over a few alpha cycles to amplify neural activity. Furthermore, we show that long-term alpha amplitude fluctuations-the "waxing and waning" phenomenon-are an attenuation-amplification mechanism described by a power-law decay of the activity rate in the "waning" phase. Importantly, we do n

SUBMITTER: Lombardi F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10842118 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature