Inter-areal coupling for cognition through coincident oscillatory transients

How do large-scale brain networks interact to enable cognition? Correlated oscillations, a mechanism for inter-areal interactions, can be expressed as phase coherence or amplitude co-fluctuations. While considerable work has investigated the functional roles of phase coherence, little is known about whether and how the coincidence of high-amplitude oscillations across the cortex can impact cognition. Here, we demonstrate that inter-areal amplitude-coupling related to cognitive dynamics mainly reflects coincident oscillatory transients, rather than sustained oscillations. Capitalizing on the spatio-temporal resolution of brain-wide magnetoencephalography (MEG) during a behavioral task probing attention and decision-making our findings reveal behaviorally relevant transient oscillatory networks: First, coincidences of oscillatory transients in the alpha and beta frequency range increase prior to correct decisions in a parieto-frontal network. Second, during attention allocation coincident oscillatory transients increase in visual, medial parietal and lateral prefrontal networks in the theta/alpha frequency range. We propose that brain-wide coincident oscillatory events are a key signature of inter-areal interactions during cognition.