City Research Online

Abstract

The waxing and waning cortical oscillatory power correlates with function and disease. This cross-trial variability has been thought to be due to neuromodulation, uncertainty encoding, and/or changes in cortical excitability. Here, we report evidence that it is also due to fluctuations in ephaptic influences of mesoscale electric fields. We analyzed LFP data from the PFC recorded during a spatial delay saccade task. We constructed a model that describes the electric field close to the cortical patch given the neural activity that generates it. This revealed that field-to-neuron interactions (ephaptic coupling strength) were stronger than neuron-to-field, and it correlated trial-by-trial changes in oscillatory power. This suggests a form of circular causality where neural activity and extracellular electric fields continuously shape each other. These results further suggest that mesoscale ephaptic effects help drive the formation of memory ensembles, a prediction of the cytoelectric coupling hypothesis.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Publisher Keywords:	ephaptic coupling, oscillations, synergetics, working memory
Subjects:	R Medicine > RC Internal medicine R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Psychology & Neuroscience
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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