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Brain Waves

Brain Waves

Brain waves are electrical signals generated by the neurons in the brain, which are regularly monitored to measure mental activities. Brain waves and their frequency ranges can be measured using an electroencephalogram or EEG. There are four main types of brain waves, each with distinct characteristics:

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 16, 2026

Visualization of Cortical Modules in Flattened Mammalian Cortices

Visualization of Cortical Modules in Flattened Mammalian Cortices

Published on: January 22, 2018

Emergence of complex wave patterns in primate cerebral cortex.

Rory G Townsend¹, Selina S Solomon², Spencer C Chen²

¹School of Physics, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia, ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2001, Australia.

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience

|March 20, 2015

Summary

Slow brain rhythms are not just synchronous activity but complex waves. These complex waves, observed at fine scales, are more biologically relevant for neural processing than previously thought.

Keywords:

cerebral cortex cortical waves electroencephalogram local field potentials

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Computational Neuroscience
Physics

Background:

Slow brain rhythms (δ-band, 1-4 Hz) are traditionally linked to synchronous neuronal activity.
Synchronous rhythms were not considered critical for information processing during wakefulness due to their slow and widespread nature.

Purpose of the Study:

To re-evaluate the role of δ-band rhythms in brain activity.
To investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of slow brain rhythms using novel analytical methods.

Main Methods:

Applied turbulence physics methods to analyze local field potential (LFP) data from marmoset cerebral cortex.
Utilized multielectrode recordings to capture high-resolution spatiotemporal patterns.

Main Results:

Synchrony accounts for less than a quarter of the local δ-band signal structure.
δ-band activity is primarily characterized by propagating plane waves and complex waves at submillimeter and millisecond scales.
Complex waves are linked to phase singularities and show higher neuronal firing rates compared to synchrony.

Conclusions:

Slow brain rhythms reflect spatiotemporally organized activity within local neural circuits.
Complex waves, not synchrony, are the dominant feature of slow brain rhythms and are biologically relevant.
Revises the understanding of slow brain rhythms' role in neural information processing.