Understanding Neural Oscillations in the Human Brain: Consciousness of Movement Execution

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Background

Theories of movement control provide extensive understanding of movement production, but there is still a gap of knowledge in explaining the neural mechanisms underlying the consciousness of movement execution. In both high precision gestures in elite sports or trivial intra-personal movements, like grasping one’s head when thinking or facial mimics during interpersonal interactions, motor activity takes place unconsciously, assuring the preservation of the self and the body identity with respect to the surrounding space or the other person. How do first-person perspective, freewill and decision-making play a role in initiating, continuing, or adapting a motor act?

It is well documented that the brain is an oscillator where populations of cells coordinate activity into cyclical patterns. Is the oscillatory neural activity first endorsing the decision of an action and afterwards controlling its performance? Cerebral and cerebellar function outspread control and learning processing for embracing cognition and emotion in an integrative frame.

Since the 1920s when Hans Berger developed the electroencephalogram (EEG) recording technique for directly assessing electrical global oscillatory activity of the living human brain, and since the more recent appearance of the unprecedented spatial precision of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) recordings, our knowledge of oscillatory brain dynamics has increased, giving new insights into how populations of cells generate and maintain cyclical activity, and how information is transferred in these networks. Frequency bands modulate in real-time, coding brain communication so specific frequency bands are associated with different behaviors or mental states. Moreover, recently it has become possible to influence neural oscillations with externally-applied stimulation (transcranial magnetic or electrical stimulation, TMS and tES) opening the door to a potential regulation of brain functioning. Modern approaches may combine recording and stimulation, such as in closed-loop stimulation for epilepsy or in neurofeedback in ADHD.

This Research Topic will gather together original works, reviews, opinions, and data sets that help us to understand how neural oscillations contribute to, or arise from, sensory, motor, and cognitive processes special to consciousness. We welcome contributions from any area of psychology and neuroscience, and using any technique that provides novel insight into the functional role of neural oscillations in the healthy brain, or in neurological or psychiatric conditions.

Keywords: conscience, EEG, MEG, tACS, movement

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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