Our current research focuses on the neural and cognitive mechanisms of attention. Attention is the focal point of human mental world, and one of the pillars of our cognition and action. To successfully perform any intentional action, we need to focus on perceptual information that is relevant for preparing the action, as well as on monitoring the action’s accuracy and results. Similarly, if we want to remember or think about given information, we need to pay attention to it. Selective attention enables us to single out the relevant bits of information from all irrelevant distractions. As William James - the father of modern psychology - wrote over a hundred years ago, “everyone knows what attention is” because everyone has one. Still, no one really knows how exactly the brain gives rise to attention. What are the underlying neural mechanisms through which the attentional focus emerges in our subjective stream of consciousness? To answer this question, we study oscillatory rhythms of electrophysiological brain activity. In particular, we investigate what are the specific functional and causal contributions of so-called alpha, beta, and theta rhythms in the brain mechanisms of attention.

The heartbeat of the brain

Neural oscillations are a fundamental functional feature of the brain. The oscillations are somewhat like “the heartbeat of the brain”. They have been called the neurobiological root of cognition. Probably most neural computations underlying our cognition and action are oscillatory. This means that both local groups of neurons and large-scale brain networks work in rhythmic tempos, just like all songs have a rhythm. The oscillations have also been characterized as traveling waves spreading throughout the brain like a wave across the water, and synchronizing neuronal activity in distant specialized areas like visual and motor cortices. Such inter-regional brain synchronization enables us to perform complex activities, like playing a musical instrument. The oscillatory activity may be the core of biophysiological apparatus of focusing selective attention. 

Our primary method of investigation is the electroencephalogram (EEG), which is a measure of the electrical activity of the brain. Our laboratory is equipped with the Brain Products GmbH actiCHamp system with 128 electrodes. We make extensive use of a variety of event-related potential (ERP) and time-frequency analysis methods. This allows us to examine different aspects of brain activity hidden in the EEG, such as power modulations, phase synchrony, rhythm entrainment, phase resetting, phase-amplitude cross-frequency coupling, and traveling waves. In some of our studies we also use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). 

More information on our current research is in the Research Projects section.

If you are a student or a postdoc who is interested in joining the lab, please write us an email.