Neuroscientists have long measured the brain's electrical oscillations—alpha, beta, gamma, and theta waves—using electrodes on the scalp. But new research using intracranial recordings is revealing that these waves are far more complex than simple planar oscillations.
In a study published in April 2026 in Nature Communications, researchers led by Joshua Jacobs and Anup Das at the University of Chicago observed a "menagerie" of wave types in awake humans: source waves emanating from a location, sink waves converging on a spot, and vortex-like spiral waves. The team found that different behavioral tasks were associated with distinct wave patterns.
This work complicates earlier findings. In a 2024 study in Nature Human Behavior, Jacobs and Uma Mohan described waves moving in opposite directions across the cortex during memory tasks—either back to front or front to back. The 2026 research showed the waves can take on much more diverse shapes.
"Even if the traveling wave was just the result of neurons firing, like the sound of the engine, it still tells us something very interesting about the brain based on what the person is doing," Jacobs said. The findings suggest these large-scale wave patterns may help reorganize the brain in real time to meet behavioral demands.