ArticleCurrent biology : CB2020
Causal Evidence for a Role of Theta and Alpha Oscillations in the Control of Working Memory.
Article in Current biology : CB, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 126 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
126 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 273 citations in OpenAlex.
- Electroencephalography in motor decision-making: a scoping review in athletes.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Ferret as a model system for studying the anatomy and function of the prefrontal cortex: A systematic review.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Oscillatory activity underlying cognitive performance in children and adolescents with autism: a systematic review.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024Pooled it
- Targeting Frontal Gamma Activity with Neurofeedback to Improve Working Memory in Schizophrenia.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2023Pooled it
- Impact of a Single Alpha Neurofeedback Session on Working and Visuospatial Memory in Football Players: A Comparison of Defenders and Attackers.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2026Trial
- Intermittent theta burst stimulation over the parietal cortex has a significant neural effect on working memory.Human brain mapping · 2022Trial
- Causal role of frontal-midline theta in cognitive effort: a pilot study.Journal of neurophysiology · 2021Trial
- Age-dependent modulations of hemispheric small-world networks in different eye states: resting-state electroencephalogram research.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Resting-state neural oscillations predict individual differences in verbal learning and encoding strategy use.iScience · 2026Article
- Dose-dependent power and connectivity modulation of low frequency oscillations through transcranial magnetic stimulation in non-human primates.Journal of neural engineering · 2026Article
- Resting-state EEG connectome topology and social norm processing in healthy young adults.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Distinct neural oscillations predict individual differences in feedback-guided cognitive flexibility.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Visual field map size constrains working memory precision.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Resting-state periodic and aperiodic brain oscillations from birth to preschool years: Aperiodic maturity predicts developmental course.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2026Article
- Alpha phase coding supports feature binding during working memory maintenance.Communications biology · 2026Article
- How the influence of cingulate-lingual interactions on event segmentation changes from early to late adolescence.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Human Beta Oscillations Reflect Magnitude and Fidelity of Priority Shifts in Working Memory.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Causal Evidence for Prefrontal-Motor Coupling in Reward-Responsive Goal-Directed Behavior.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Tuning out emotional distractors by tuning in theta rhythm: improving visual working memory using transcranial magnetic stimulation.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Article
66 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
Working memory (WM) relies on the prioritization of relevant information and suppression of irrelevant information [1, 2]. Prioritizing relevant information has been linked to theta frequency neural oscillations in lateral prefrontal cortex and suppressing irrelevant information has been linked to alpha oscillations in occipito-parietal cortex [3,11]. Here, we used a retrospective-cue WM paradigm to manipulate prioritization and suppression task demands designed to drive theta oscillations in prefrontal cortex and alpha oscillations in parietal cortex, respectively. To causally test the role of these neural oscillations, we applied rhythmic transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in either theta or alpha frequency to prefrontal and parietal regions identified using functional MRI. The effect of rhythmic TMS on WM performance was dependent on whether the TMS frequency matched or mismatched the expected underlying task-driven oscillations of the targeted region. Functional MRI in the targeted regions predicted subsequent TMS effects across subjects supporting a model by which theta oscillations are excitatory to neural activity, and alpha oscillations are inhibitory. Together, these results causally establish dissociable roles for prefrontal theta oscillations and parietal alpha oscillations in the control of internally maintained WM representations.
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Registered trials
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.