{"id":57192,"date":"2026-07-21T08:38:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T15:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/?post_type=disclosure&#038;p=57192"},"modified":"2026-07-21T10:10:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:10:23","slug":"why-do-we-have-traveling-brain-waves","status":"publish","type":"disclosure","link":"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/es\/news-release\/why-do-we-have-traveling-brain-waves\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do we have traveling brain waves?"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul style=\"margin-bottom: 30px;\">\n<li style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: -20px !important; margin-left: -20px !important;\"><strong>Lo m\u00e1s destacado<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Salk neuroscientist who discovered traveling brain waves in the awake visual system in 2020 now asks <em>why<\/em> they exist<\/li>\n<li>New review article suggests neural traveling waves are a computational engine that allows us to build internal representations of the outside world<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>LA JOLLA\u2014Your brain has something surprising in common with the ocean: waves! Electrical activity washes over the brain\u2019s surface, creating what are called traveling brain waves or <em>neural traveling waves. <\/em>These waves cause real differences in your behavior and attention, and\u2014again, like ocean waves\u2014can have variable causes, from intrinsic to environmental inputs.<\/p>\n<p>A new review article written by Salk Institute neuroscientists synthesizes the physiological and computational information about these neural traveling waves and draws a new conclusion: Neural traveling waves are a computational engine in the visual cortex. These waves allow the visual cortex (and likely other areas of the brain) to build representations of the external world, enabling our capacity to predict, reconstruct, and perceive the world around us.<\/p>\n<p>The piece was published in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0896627326004873?dgcid=author\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Neurona <\/em><\/a>on July 21, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"font-size: 20px;\"><strong>What are traveling brain waves, and why do they exist?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_37802\"  class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"420\" class=\"img-responsive wp-image-37802 size-pr-300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-300x420.jpg\" alt=\"Neuroscientist John Reynolds synthesized years of research about neural brain waves to propose they are a computational powerhouse that allow the brain to predict, reconstruct, and perceive the world.\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-300x420.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-731x1024.jpg 731w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-768x1075.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-1097x1536.jpg 1097w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-1463x2048.jpg 1463w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-147x206.jpg 147w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-458x641.jpg 458w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-585x819.jpg 585w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-553x774.jpg 553w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-750x1050.jpg 750w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-767x1074.jpg 767w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-945x1323.jpg 945w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-1250x1750.jpg 1250w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500-400x560.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Neuroscientist John Reynolds synthesized years of research about neural brain waves to propose they are a computational powerhouse that allow the brain to predict, reconstruct, and perceive the world.<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/John-Reynolds-1500.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Haga clic aqu\u00ed<\/a> para obtener una imagen en alta resoluci\u00f3n.<br \/>Cr\u00e9dito: Instituto Salk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Salk neuroscientist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/es\/scientist\/john-reynolds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Reynolds, PhD,<\/a> was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/es\/news-release\/traveling-brain-waves-help-detect-hard-to-see-objects\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">first to identify traveling brain waves in the visual systems of awake animals back in 2020<\/a>. What\u2019s more, his lab found that these traveling brain waves directly correlated with whether those animals were able to perceive an object right in front of them\u2014helping explain the classic conundrum of searching for something, like a pair of keys, that evidently was right in front of you the whole time.<\/p>\n<p>After finding that traveling brain waves exist in awake animals, and that they alter animals\u2019 ability to perceive stimuli at a given moment, Reynolds had a new question: Why?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis paper lays out, for the first time in a single integrated framework, what the brain can actually compute by virtue of having this recurrent wave-generating circuitry,\u201d says Reynolds, senior and co-corresponding author of the paper.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers focused on the visual cortex, proposing neural traveling waves allow the visual cortex to: 1) modulate perception moment to moment, 2) turn recent sensory inputs into an internal representation of those inputs, 3) generate short-term predictions about the external world, and 4) store and replay patterns that represent memories of events unfolding in time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"font-size: 20px;\"><strong>What does this new framework mean?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The paper suggests that neural brain waves are much more than just electrical noise. The neural connections that generate these waves aren\u2019t simply relaying signals; rather, they change their physiology (\u201csynaptic weights\u201d) to reflect the outside world.<\/p>\n<p>Each sight, smell, sound, and action of an animal alters the connections that generate these waves, building the neural circuitry that the brain uses to construct an internal representation of the external world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is, in a meaningful sense, analogous to what large language models like ChatGPT do,\u201d explains Reynolds. \u201cThey learn statistical structure from language and use that knowledge to generate meaningful and appropriately structured text that reflects the patterns of language. The brain may be doing something functionally similar\u2014a biological generative model built from the ground up by experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each time the brain receives sensory input, it must decide, <em>what am I most likely sensing right now? <\/em>Though the world is rich and complex, it is also somewhat predictable; objects around you exist in 3D space, you see the world in retinal images that change with your eye and body movements, and the laws of physics and physiology overlay this all.<\/p>\n<p>Reynolds\u2019 paper proposes that the brain internalizes these regularities by encoding them in networks of synapses, which can then generate waves that allow the brain to infer the likely causes of sensory input and construct an internal model of the world. This framing brings us one step closer to understanding how our brains compute the busy, messy world around us, turning a complicated sensory onslaught into behaviors and experiences.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"font-size: 20px;\"><strong>Otros autores y financiaci\u00f3n<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Other authors of this study include Lyle Muller of UT Dallas and Fields Institute, Alexandra Busch of Fields Institute and Western University, and Zachary Davis of University of Utah.<\/p>\n<p>This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (R01 EY028723, U01 NS131914, and U01 NS139877, EY014800), Research to Prevent Blindness, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Western University, Compute Ontario, and Digital Research Alliance of Canada.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>This press release was written by Isabella Davis<\/em><br \/>\nConact: <a href=\"mailto:press@salk.edu\">press@salk.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>","protected":false},"featured_media":37803,"template":"","faculty":[107],"disease-research":[124,464],"class_list":["post-57192","disclosure","type-disclosure","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","faculty-john-reynolds","disease-research-neuroscience-and-neurological-disorders","disease-research-perception"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why do we have traveling brain waves? - Salk Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/es\/news-release\/why-do-we-have-traveling-brain-waves\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_MX\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why do we have traveling brain waves? - Salk Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Highlights Salk neuroscientist who discovered traveling brain waves in the awake visual system in 2020 now asks why they exist New review article suggests neural traveling waves are a computational engine that allows us to build internal representations of the outside world LA JOLLA\u2014Your brain has something surprising in common with the ocean: waves! 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