ArticleFrontiers in psychology2011
Pulsed out of awareness: EEG alpha oscillations represent a pulsed-inhibition of ongoing cortical processing.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 243 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
243 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The modulation of steady-state responses by transcranial alternating current stimulation: a scoping review.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Facilitates Cortical Arousal and Alertness.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Trial
- Transcranial direct current stimulation generates a transient increase of small-world in brain connectivity: an EEG graph theoretical analysis.Experimental brain research · 2018Trial
- Neuroinflammation, cortical activity, and fatiguing behaviour during self-paced exercise.Pflugers Archiv : European journal of physiology · 2018Trial
- Effects of Alpha Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation on Stress Reactivity and Decision Making: A Randomized Sham-Controlled Trial.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- Neurophysiological correlates of passive movements are speed- and type-dependent.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Article
- Prolonged Visual Entrainment Induces Long-Lasting Alpha-Band Modulations.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- Alpha-band phase modulates perceptual sensitivity by changing internal noise and sensory tuning.eLife · 2026Article
- Instability of Alpha Oscillatory States in Autism and Familial Liability: Evidence from Burst-Resolved High-Density Electroencephalography (EEG).bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cortical alpha changes during visuospatial attention: a deep learning-enriched EEG analysis.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Number of Alpha Peaks in the Electroencephalogram Is Associated With Clinical Phenotype and Copy Number Variants in Youths With Autism.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- Structural integrity of the anterior thalamic radiation predicts alpha oscillations and inattention during visual encoding.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- A human electrophysiological signature of Fragile X pathophysiology is shared in V1 of Fmr1Nature communications · 2026Article
- Hypoxia alters the century old Berger effect.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Rhythmic visual stimulation enhances visual search via occipito-parietal alpha modulation: an electroencephalographic study.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Contents of Visual Predictions Oscillate at Alpha Frequencies.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Alpha Modulation of Spiking Activity Across Multiple Brain Regions in Mice Performing a Tactile Selective Detection Task.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
- Article
- Alpha oscillations mediate inhibitory control and perceptual transitions during binocular rivalry.iScience · 2025Article
- A hierarchical multiscale model of forward and backward alpha-band traveling waves in the visual system.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
183 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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Abstract
Alpha oscillations are ubiquitous in the brain, but their role in cortical processing remains a matter of debate. Recently, evidence has begun to accumulate in support of a role for alpha oscillations in attention selection and control. Here we first review evidence that 8-12 Hz oscillations in the brain have a general inhibitory role in cognitive processing, with an emphasis on their role in visual processing. Then, we summarize the evidence in support of our recent proposal that alpha represents a pulsed-inhibition of ongoing neural activity. The phase of the ongoing electroencephalography can influence evoked activity and subsequent processing, and we propose that alpha exerts its inhibitory role through alternating microstates of inhibition and excitation. Finally, we discuss evidence that this pulsed-inhibition can be entrained to rhythmic stimuli in the environment, such that preferential processing occurs for stimuli at predictable moments. The entrainment of preferential phase may provide a mechanism for temporal attention in the brain. This pulsed inhibitory account of alpha has important implications for many common cognitive phenomena, such as the attentional blink, and seems to indicate that our visual experience may at least some times be coming through in waves.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.