Neural oscillation

Neural oscillation is a rhythmic or repetitive neural activity in the central nervous system. Neural tissue can generate oscillatory activity in many ways, driven either by mechanisms within individual neurons or by interactions between neurons. In individual neurons, oscillations can appear either as oscillations in membrane potential or as rhythmic patterns of action potentials, which then produce oscillatory activation of post-synaptic neurons. At the level of neural ensembles, synchronized activity of large numbers of neurons can give rise to macroscopic oscillations, which can be observed in an electroencephalogram. Oscillatory activity in groups of neurons generally arises from feedback connections between the neurons that result in the synchronization of their firing patterns. The interaction between neurons can give rise to oscillations at a different frequency than the firing frequency of individual neurons. A well-known example of macroscopic neural oscillations is alpha activity.

Types of Neural Oscillations

Neural oscillations are commonly characterized by their frequency, amplitude and phase. Different types of neural oscillations may be used for different functions. Some types of neural oscillations are:

• Delta oscillations (0.5–4 Hz)
• Theta oscillations (4–8 Hz)
• Alpha oscillations (8–12 Hz)
• Beta oscillations (12–30 Hz)
• Gamma oscillations (30–100 Hz)

Functions of Neural Oscillations

Neural oscillations have been linked to various cognitive functions such as information transfer, perception, and memory. For example, neural oscillations in the alpha frequency band have been associated with attention, while gamma oscillations have been linked to sensory perception and memory encoding.

See Also

• Electroencephalography
• Neuroscience
• Brain waves

References

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