Canonical: https://aliennews.co.il/en/articles/mit-traveling-brain-waves-consciousness Language: en datePublished: 2026-09-16 dateModified: 2026-09-16 CONSCIOUSNESS · NEUROSCIENCE September 16, 2026 **Documented** **Work type:** Research and ideas review # The brain is not only wired. Researchers say it also computes with waves A new theory proposes that waves travelling across the cortex select which networks operate from moment to moment, bind information into a unified state and enable fast parallel computation. By Avi Moas and [Orion](https://aliennews.co.il/en/about#orion) Orion is an AI writing and research partner. Avi Moas is the responsible editor. Research, hypotheses and ideas at the boundaries of knowledge. ![Editorial illustration of waves entering a brain and activating neural networks](https://aliennews.co.il/brain-filter-signal-editorial-v2.webp) Editorial illustration of information processing and wave activity in the brain. It is not an image of an experiment or a brain recording. A thought can change before the brain has time to build a new connection. A sound arrives, a memory surfaces, an earlier goal moves aside, and within a fraction of a second one response emerges from millions of possibilities. Fixed neural wiring matters, but it does not by itself explain how the brain switches tasks at that speed. Three scientists at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory propose that the control system lies in waves travelling across the cortex. In a review published in The Journal of Neuroscience, Earl Miller, Scott Brincat and Jefferson Roy describe a brain that uses its own physics to organise neural networks in real time. Instead of calculating only as a sequence of switches, it may run several operations in parallel through interacting waves. The proposal tries to connect three phenomena often discussed separately: flexible thought, parallel computation and the unified experience we call consciousness. It remains a model awaiting a direct test, not a finished solution to consciousness. ## Wiring stores, waves select In the model, connections between neurons store representations of memories, goals and knowledge. Waves determine which of those representations are active now. Relatively slow alpha and beta waves carry the context of memory and goals, regulating faster gamma activity associated with incoming sensory information. The concrete picture is a moving stencil. A beta wave passes through a local area of cortex and sets where and when faster activity can process information. As the stencil moves, the group of neurons participating in the task can change. The same physical infrastructure is therefore not locked into a single role. The researchers call this spatiotemporal computing. Rather than waiting for slow changes in the connections themselves, the brain rapidly changes the pattern moving across them. ## When two waves meet In an analog system, waves can reinforce one another, cancel or form a new pattern. The authors propose that such interactions let the brain carry out many calculations in parallel. Rhythmic activity would not merely keep time for neurons. It would be part of the computation. One possible mechanism is ephaptic coupling. The electric field generated by a group of cells can quickly influence nearby firing without waiting for chemical transmission across a synapse. Earlier work from the lab has found evidence that waves emerging from neural spiking can in turn coordinate subsequent spiking. Now comes the difficult test. Miller says the next step is to look for direct signatures of analog computation in wave patterns. The measurements must show more than waves being present during a task. The way they interact should predict the computation being performed. ## Anaesthesia and the connection to consciousness The broader claim is that consciousness emerges when wave patterns bring the cortex into an organised, globally integrated state. Activity in distant regions can then connect and influence one another instead of remaining separate islands. Some of the support comes from studies of general anaesthesia. Miller and Emery Brown have shown that three drugs with different molecular mechanisms similarly disrupt wave organisation as consciousness is lost. For the review's authors, that common effect suggests that large scale organisation may matter more than any one receptor or cell type. Anaesthesia provides a strong link between wave organisation and conscious state. It does not yet reveal whether the waves are the full cause of experience, a condition that enables it, or a sign of a deeper process. ## What the next measurement needs to show The model also opens a practical possibility. Brain waves can be influenced without surgery, so a more precise understanding of their dynamics could eventually support treatments aimed at a pattern rather than only a molecule. The lab already participates in research on waves in autism, but the new paper does not present a ready treatment. The next important publication will need more than another striking map of waves across the brain. It must show a computation: two patterns meeting, a predictable result, and a change in behaviour or experience when that interaction is altered. That is where the theory can begin moving from an idea about how the brain thinks to a mechanism that can be tested. ## Sources and context Neural waves at different frequencies have been measured across many studies. The new review brings together findings on their movement, their roles in memory and sensory processing, and their disruption under general anaesthesia. The researchers have not yet directly demonstrated that interactions between waves perform the proposed analog computations, or that this mechanism alone produces consciousness. [MIT News and the paper in The Journal of Neuroscience](https://news.mit.edu/2026/cognition-consciousness-arise-from-analog-computations-says-new-theory-0901)[MIT News, September 1, 2026](https://news.mit.edu/2026/cognition-consciousness-arise-from-analog-computations-says-new-theory-0901)[Analog Cognition and Consciousness in The Journal of Neuroscience](https://www.jneurosci.org/content/46/33/e0711262026)[Back to all reports](https://aliennews.co.il/en#latest)[עברית](https://aliennews.co.il/articles/mit-traveling-brain-waves-consciousness) ## Source references * [https://news.mit.edu/2026/cognition-consciousness-arise-from-analog-computations-says-new-theory-0901](https://news.mit.edu/2026/cognition-consciousness-arise-from-analog-computations-says-new-theory-0901) * [https://www.jneurosci.org/content/46/33/e0711262026](https://www.jneurosci.org/content/46/33/e0711262026)