Alpha-band oscillations, attention, and controlled access to stored information

By Wolfgang Klimesch. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2012

3,047 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Alpha-band oscillations are the dominant oscillations in the human brain and recent evidence suggests that they have an inhibitory function. Nonetheless, there is little doubt that alpha-band oscillations also play an active role in information processing. In this article, I suggest that alpha-band oscillations have two roles (inhibition and timing) that are closely linked to two fundamental functions of attention (suppression and selection), which enable controlled knowledge access and semantic orientation (the ability to be consciously oriented in time, space, and context). As such, alpha-band oscillations reflect one of the most basic cognitive processes and can also be shown to play a key role in the coalescence of brain activity in different frequencies.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/048c375d33d3e5a2997842c9bee688394229b67a

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In Cognitive Neuroscience

Citations in the corpus

Neurocognitive architecture of working memory (2015, background): “…alpha power has long been associated with active cognitive processing in various attention and working-memory tasks, and contemporary views of alpha suggest that it reflects the allocation of spatial attention to the memoranda, as well as the suppression of distracting information (Klimesch, 2012).”
Inter- and intra-individual variability in alpha peak frequency (2014, background): “Furthermore, we explored the relation between individual alpha and beta peak frequencies, as a harmonic relationship between the two has been suggested (Carlqvist et al., 2005; Gaarder and Speck, 1967; Klimesch, 2012).”
EEG microstates as a tool for studying the temporal dynamics of whole‐brain neuronal networks: A review (2017, background): “) of access to some mental contents, whereby the spectral distribution of the activity may determine whether a particular state may activate or block information processing (Klimesch, 2012).”
The steady-state visual evoked potential in vision research: A review. (2015, background): “The experimental noise is present over all frequencies in the spectrum (white bars in Figure 1j), with more noise in low frequencies and in specific broadband frequency ranges such as the alpha band (8–12 Hz; see, e.g., Klimesch, 2012).”
Buildup and Release from Proactive Interference - Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms. (2020, background): “…been linked to memory load (Jensen and Tesche, 2002; Onton et al., 2005; Sederberg et al., 2006) and increases in alpha activity to inattention (Klimesch, 2012; Palva and Palva, 2007), these findings suggest that the preceding encoding of (nontarget) material can lead to high memory load and…”
EEG and MEG: relevance to neuroscience. (2013, methodology): “In this way, a modulation can be a mechanism to optimize signal-to-noise ratio promoting the conditions for efficient information processing (Jensen and Mazaheri, 2010; in line with Klimesch et al., 2007; Klimesch, 2012).”
Motivation-Achievement Cycles in Learning: a Literature Review and Research Agenda (2021, background): “Higher mental effort/workload has been associated with attenuated parietal alpha activity (Brouwer et al., 2012, 2014; Fink et al., 2005), higher frontal theta activity (Cavanagh & Frank, 2014; Klimesch, 2012), and a higher theta/alpha ratio.”
The functional significance of delta oscillations in cognitive processing (2013, background): “INTEGRATIVE NEUROSCIENCE REVIEW ARTICLE published: 05 December 2013 doi: 10.3389/fnint.2013.00083 The functional significance of delta oscillations in cognitive processing”
The development of theta and alpha neural oscillations from ages 3 to 24 years (2021, unknown): “This finding is similar to the well-replicated phenomenon that cognitive tasks requiring active visual attention decrease alpha amplitude in adults (Klimesch, 2012).”
Functional segregation of rostral and caudal hippocampus in associative memory (2025, unknown): “This is consistent with previous findings that link alpha activity suppression to resource allocation during memory and attention-related tasks (Klimesch, 2012; Klimesch et al., 2007).”
Multiplexed Levels of Cognitive Control through Delta and Theta Neural Oscillations (2024, background): “…studies, for example, indicate that there is an interplay between gamma and beta in pFC (Lundqvist et al., 2016, 2023), whereas alpha dynamics are typically observed during working memory maintenance in parietal and visual cortices (Sreenivasan & D ’ Esposito, 2019; van Ede, 2018; Klimesch, 2012).”
Resting state aperiodic and periodic EEG activity in preschool-aged autistic children: differences from neurotypical peers and links to language skills (2026, unknown): “Alpha oscillations also play a critical role in the timing of cortical processes [71] and provide an infrastructure for neural communication within and between brain regions [13, 72], all of which are essential for language processing and learning.”
Altered network connectivity and global efficiency in tourette syndrome: insights into sensorimotor integration (2025, unknown): “…more robust and functionally specialized later in development, and is more heterogeneous and variable during maturation, which can contribute to reduced group-level significance due to high inter-individual differences in this age range (Klimesch, 2012; Smit et al., 2012; Uhlhaas et al., 2009).”