Neocortical activity is permeated with endogenously generated fluctuations, but how these
dynamics affect goal-directed behavior remains a mystery. We found that ensemble neural …

Spontaneous fluctuations in cortical excitability influence sensory processing and behavior.
These fluctuations, long thought to reflect global changes in cortical state, were recently …

Internal states such as arousal, attention and motivation modulate brain-wide neural activity,
but how these processes interact with learning is not well understood. During learning, the …

Intrinsic timescales characterize dynamics of endogenous fluctuations in neural activity.
Variation of intrinsic timescales across the neocortex reflects functional specialization of …

INTRODUCTION In the absence of sensory inputs, the brain produces structured patterns of
activity, which can be as large as or larger than sensory-driven activity. Ongoing activity …

Attention helps us process potentially important objects by selectively increasing the activity
of sensory neurons that represent the relevant locations and features of our environment …

Experimental work across species has demonstrated that spontaneously generated
behaviors are robustly coupled to variations in neural activity within the cerebral cortex …

Whereas gamma-band neuronal oscillations clearly appear integral to visual attention, the
role of lower-frequency oscillations is still being debated. Mounting evidence indicates that a …

Spontaneous fluctuations of ongoing neural activity substantially affect sensory and
cognitive performance. Because bodily signals are constantly relayed up to the neocortex …

Animals can learn to voluntarily control neuronal activity within various brain areas through
operant conditioning, but the relevance of that control to cognitive functions is unknown. We …