title: Brain Oscillations and the Importance of Waveform Shape.
abstract: Oscillations are a prevalent feature of brain recordings. They are believed to play key roles in neural communication and computation. Current analysis methods for studying neural oscillations often implicitly assume that the oscillations are sinusoidal. While these approaches have proven fruitful, we show here that there are numerous instances in which neural oscillations are nonsinusoidal. We highlight approaches to characterize nonsinusoidal features and account for them in traditional spectral analysis. Instead of being a nuisance, we discuss how these nonsinusoidal features may provide crucial and so far overlooked physiological information related to neural communication, computation, and cognition.
authors.affiliation: Neurosciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA. Electronic address: scott.cole0@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Scott R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Cole
authors.affiliation: Neurosciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA; Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA; Institute for Neural Computation, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA; Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Bradley
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Voytek
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D058256:Brain Waves / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans
keywords: nonsinusoidal; oscillation; phase–amplitude coupling; shape; waveform