Tognoli E., Kelso, J.A.S. (in prep). Toward an understanding of 10Hz rhythms in the human waking EEG.

Distinguishing the variety of 10Hz rhythms, understanding their functional significance and properly estimating their individual contributions in spectral studies are challenges that confront non-invasive electrophysiology. Based on reanalysis of archival EEG data in a number of cognitive, behavioral and social tasks, here we present several new 10Hz brain rhythms and specify dissociations and variants for rhythms whose existence was previously recognized such as alpha and mu. The crowding of the 10Hz band raises specific problems for adequate experimental design, analysis and interpretation of electrophysiological data. At the same time, individuation of these rhythms is promising: a lexicon of brain functional processes (‘neuromarkers’) is proposed that could be useful for basic and clinical science, including neuro-feedback, brain computer interface and neuro-pharmacological studies. We sketch a tentative functional dictionary of 10Hz rhythms and propose a theory of them in which inter- and intra-individual variability may be explained.