Brain-wave patterns raise new questions over cognition

Intracranial recordings from people performing memory tasks have revealed brain-wave patterns more varied than simple waves moving across the cortex. A study published in April 2026 in Nature Communications reported concentric waves that spread from or converge on a point, alongside rotating spiral patterns.

The research team, including University of Chicago neuroscientists Joshua Jacobs and Anup Das, recorded activity through electrodes placed in people undergoing epilepsy treatment. Participants recalled words in a verbal task and object locations in a virtual environment in a spatial task.

Rotating waves appeared somewhat more often during the spatial task, while verbal-task patterns tended to be simpler. The association does not show that rotating waves enable more complex memory behaviour.

Researchers have proposed that travelling waves could help coordinate or reorganise brain activity as behaviour changes. Other work has linked them to sensory processing and prediction. But scientists disagree over whether the waves actively help process information or reflect underlying neuronal and synaptic activity.

The human recordings covered only brain locations where electrodes had been placed for clinical care, leaving the prevalence of these patterns unclear. Quanta Magazine’s account also describes studies in mice and a review on sensory prediction, but these do not settle the function of waves in human cognition.