Differential representations of spatial location by aperiodic and alpha oscillatory activity in working memory.

ABSTRACT: Decades of research have shown working memory (WM) relies on sustained prefrontal cortical activity and visual extrastriate activity, particularly in the alpha (8 to 12 Hz) frequency range. This alpha activity tracks the spatial location of WM items, even when spatial position is task-irrelevant and no stimulus is currently being presented. Traditional analyses of putative oscillations using bandpass filters, however, conflate oscillations with nonoscillatory aperiodic activity. Here, we reanalyzed seven human electroencephalography visual WM datasets to test the hypothesis that aperiodic activity, which is thought to reflect the relative contributions of excitatory and inhibitory drive-plays a distinct role in visual WM from true alpha oscillations. To do this, we developed a time-resolve

SUBMITTER: Bender A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12318205 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature