Which one is the engaged region? A further critical question is whether oscillations in the theta frequency range should be considered fundamentally different from those in the alpha range? In the hippocampus, these frequencies are lumped together as “theta,” but is this also appropriate for cortex? In the following paragraphs, we discuss these questions. A classic observation is that alpha power in occipital cortex is high when the visual system is not engaged (Adrian and Matthews, 1934). A cue indicating

that attention must be turned to one hemifield leads to a sharp drop in alpha power in the engaged (contralateral) cortex (Worden et al., 2000). In contrast, alpha power in ipsilateral Z-VAD-FMK mouse visual cortex may actually increase. This increase is associated with suppression of information that is irrelevant to the task (Thut et al., 2006) and with improved performance (Händel et al., 2011). Further evidence

that high alpha power is associated with inhibition is that firing rates, phosphene detection, and the BOLD signal are all reduced (Haegens et al., 2011; Ritter et al., 2009; Romei et al., 2008). One characteristic of alpha is that neural activity is http://www.selleckchem.com/products/byl719.html limited to only about half of the cycle (Bollimunta et al., 2008; Bollimunta et al., 2011; Lakatos et al., 2005). This low-duty cycle (for comparison, see high-duty cycle of firing in Figure 2) probably accounts for why perception is dependent on alpha phase (Busch et al., 2009; Dugué et al., 2011; Mathewson et al., 2009). The suppression of alpha power has also been observed in other sensory and motor regions when they become engaged (Fontanini and Katz, 2005; Hari and Salmelin, 1997; Pfurtscheller et al., 1997). Importantly, the suppression is even specific to the particular

motor subregion that is engaged (Pfurtscheller et al., 1997; see also Miller et al., 2009).Thus, in cortex, high alpha power is an inhibited state, and low alpha power appears to be an indicator of engagement. Do these “alpha rules” also apply to the only slightly slower cortical oscillations in the theta either range? It is important to recall that the frequency bands corresponding to alpha and theta were assigned arbitrarily without consideration of function. Consider Figure 9. If we use hippocampal theta as a model, the elevated theta state would be the engaged state. But based on the “alpha rules,” the lowered theta state would be the engaged state. In favor of the latter, work combining EEG and fMRI has demonstrated that the BOLD signal is high when theta power is low (Michels et al., 2010; Scheeringa et al., 2009). Another perspective on this issue comes from consideration of gamma activity. Gamma is present during the high alpha power state and is phase locked to alpha. As alpha power is decreased, gamma power is increased (Spaak et al., 2012). Importantly, when alpha power falls during task engagement, gamma and its modulation by low-frequency oscillations remain (Sauseng et al., 2009).