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Traveling waves in the prefrontal cortex during working memory

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Neural oscillations are evident across cortex but their spatial structure is not well- explored. Are oscillations stationary or do they form traveling waves, i.e., spatially organized patterns whose peaks and troughs move sequentially across cortex? Here, we show that oscillations in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) organized as traveling waves in the theta (4-8Hz), alpha (8-12Hz), and beta (12-30Hz) bands. Some traveling waves were planar while many rotated around an anatomical point. The waves were modulated during performance of a working memory task. During baseline conditions, waves flowed bidirectionally along a specific axis of orientation. During task performance, there was an increase in waves in one direction over the other, especially in the beta band. We discuss functional implications.