We cordially invite you to the next lecture of the BME cognitive seminar series:

Date & Time: November 22, Tuesday, 16:00-17:00
Location: BME, XI., Egry József utca 1., T. ép 515.

Wolfgang Klimesch
Division of Physiological Psychology, University of Salzburg, Austria

The meaning of alpha synchronization and inhibition for memory

Abstract

Convergent evidence suggests that an increase in alpha amplitudes reflects inhibition. As an example, alpha is increased over the ipsilateral hemisphere in a variety of spatial attention- and working memory tasks with hemifield presentations of visual stimuli. But alpha obviously also reflects an ‘active’ process that can hardly be interpreted in terms of ‘pure’ inhibition that simply blocks information processing. As an example, an increase in evoked alpha and inter-areal phase synchronisation can be observed during access to stored memories. It is suggested that inhibition – associated with alpha - might operate in at least two different ways. In task irrelevant and potentially competing/interfering networks, an increase in inhibition may indeed reflect the actual blocking of information processing. In task relevant neural networks, however, an increase in inhibition may improve the signal to noise ratio by silencing neurons with a comparatively low level of excitation. A variety of recent findings – including evoked traveling alpha waves – will be discussed that are well in line with the suggested interpretation.

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Attila Keresztes

Junior Research Fellow
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Dept. of Cognitive Science,
Egry József u. 1, Budapest
1111, Hungary
Tel: +36 1 4633525