The importance of timing in segregated theta phase-coupling for cognitive performance

Polanía, Rafael, Michael A Nitsche, Carolin Korman, Giorgi Batsikadze, and Walter Paulus. 2012. 'The importance of timing in segregated theta phase-coupling for cognitive performance', Current Biology, 22: 1314-18.
 
Summary:        Neural oscillations are theorized to be necessary for interregional communication. Synchrony between the frontal and parietal cortex increases during cognitive control. Polanía et al. used a novel three electrode montage to synchronize the frontal and parietal cortex in-phase or anti-phase. Participants receive the stimulation during performance of a working memory task. In-phase stimulation increased behavioral performance and anti-phase stimulation decreased performance.
 
Pros:

• Novel approach to test the causal role of frontal-parietal synchrony
• Use of a control frequency and sham
• Bi-directional manipulation is compelling

 
Open questions:

• Do the benefit to working memory generalize to other domains?
• Would the efficacy of stimulation be improved by individual frequency targeting?

 
Contributed by: Justin Riddle, PhD