ArticleNature human behaviour2024
The direction of theta and alpha travelling waves modulates human memory processing.
Article in Nature human behaviour, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 72 citations in OpenAlex.
- Human tau pathology is associated with lonely, nontraveling slow waves linked to memory impairment.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
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- Frequency-Specific Neural Dynamics and Decoding of Hierarchical Auditory Sequences Revealed by Magnetoencephalography.Neuroscience bulletin · 2026Article
- Article
- I Can't Hear You Both at the Same Time: A Temporal Dilemma During Inter-Regional Communication.eNeuro · 2026Article
- Sub-second fluctuations between top-down and bottom-up modes distinguish diverse human brain states.Current biology : CB · 2026Article
- The prefrontal cortex across scales: laminar architecture, white-matter constraints, and distributed control in cognition.Brain structure & function · 2026Review
- Hidden Spirals Reveal the Neurocomputational Mechanisms of Traveling Waves in Human Memory.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Traveling-wave transcranial alternating current stimulation (twtACS) causally links neural timing to cognitive function.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Perceptual Temporal Structure Supports Rhythm Learning and Enhances Theta Oscillations When Perception and Action Are Dissociated.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Balancing Stability and Flow in Hippocampal Networks via Inductive Bias and Learned Symmetry Breaking.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Planar, spiral, and concentric traveling waves distinguish behavioral states in human memory.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Article
- A Spatially Structured Spiking Network Model of Beta Traveling Waves and Their Attenuation in Motor Cortex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Nested spatiotemporal theta-gamma waves organize hierarchical processing across the mouse visual cortex.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Neural Coding of Multiple Linguistic Components During Reading Comprehension Across Development.Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- A proposal for realizing cognitive functions using traveling waves, phase-locked and synchronized patterns, holography, neural mixing, and single sideband communications.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2026Article
- Task-invariant anterior-to-posterior large-scale phase gradients of electrocorticogram oscillations during picture naming and wrist extension.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Mapping EEG Metrics to Human Affective and Cognitive Models: An Interdisciplinary Scoping Review from a Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Brain-Wide Spatiotemporally Distinct Traveling Waves Drive Anxiety-Like Behaviors in Mice.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
To support a range of behaviours, the brain must flexibly coordinate neural activity across widespread brain regions. One potential mechanism for this coordination is a travelling wave, in which a neural oscillation propagates across the brain while organizing the order and timing of activity across regions. Although travelling waves are present across the brain in various species, their potential functional relevance has remained unknown. Here, using rare direct human brain recordings, we demonstrate a distinct functional role for travelling waves of theta- and alpha-band (2-13 Hz) oscillations in the cortex. Travelling waves propagate in different directions during separate cognitive processes. In episodic memory, travelling waves tended to propagate in a posterior-to-anterior direction during successful memory encoding and in an anterior-to-posterior direction during recall. Because travelling waves of oscillations correspond to local neuronal spiking, these patterns indicate that rhythmic pulses of activity move across the brain in different directions for separate behaviours. More broadly, our results suggest a fundamental role for travelling waves and oscillations in dynamically coordinating neural connectivity, by flexibly organizing the timing and directionality of network interactions across the cortex to support cognition and behaviour.
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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.