The dominance of large-scale phase dynamics in human cortex, from delta to gamma

The organization of the phase of electrical activity in the cortex is critical to inter-site communication, but the balance of this communication across large-scale (>8 cm), macroscopic (>1 cm), and mesoscopic (1 cm to 1 mm) ranges is an open question. The spatial frequencies (i.e. the spatial scales) of cortical waves have been characterized in the gray matter for micro- and mesoscopic scales of cortex and show decreasing spatial power with increasing spatial frequency. This research, however, has been limited by the size of the measurement array, thus excluding large-scale traveling waves. Obversely, poor spatial resolution of extracranial measurements prevents incontrovertible large-scale estimates of spatial power. We estimate the spatial frequency spectrum of phase dynamics in order to quantify the uncertain large-scale range, utilizing stereotactic electroencephalogram to measure local-field potentials within the gray matter. We take advantage of the large extent of spatial coverage of the cortical sheet, and irregular sampling is offset by use of linear algebra techniques. We find the spatial power of the phase is highest at the lowest spatial frequencies (longest wavelengths), consistent with the power spectra ranges for micro- and meso-scale dynamics, but here shown up to the size of the measurement array (up to 8-16 cm). This result arises across a wide range of temporal frequencies, from the delta band (1-3 Hz) through to the high gamma range (60-100 Hz).