Alpha wave

[6] Historically, alpha waves were thought to represent the brain in an idle state as they are strongest during rest and quiet wakefulness.

[citation needed] More recently it was found the alpha oscillations increase in demanding task not requiring visual input.

[7][8] These findings resulted in the notion that alpha oscillations inhibit areas of the cortex not in use,[9] and they play an active role in network coordination and communication.

Human alpha rhythm has strong generators[clarification needed] in parieto-occipital areas[12][13] which can be coherent with sources in the pulvinar and lateral geniculate nucleus.

Based on intracranial recordings in epileptic patients it was reported that alpha acts within the nervous system by propagating from cortex to thalamus.

The experimental and computational models explored by Traub RD et al. suggested cortical- a lamina- and principal neuron subtype specific origin for the visual alpha rhythm.

[citation needed] Mindfulness meditation has been shown to increase alpha wave power in both healthy subjects and patients.

[26] Practitioners of Transcendental Meditation have demonstrated a one-Hertz reduction in alpha wave frequency relative to controls.

This study used common sense: alpha waves indicate idleness, and mistakes are often made when a person is doing something automatically, or "on auto-pilot", and not paying attention to the task they are performing.

[30] A study has shown that the appearance of an alpha rhythm with open eyes can be a predictor of visual information processing in working memory.

[31] It was shown that the moment of appearance of alpha activity depends on the type of stimulus in memory and the number of visual characteristics (color, shape, etc.)

[33][additional citation(s) needed] Alpha waves were discovered by German neurologist Hans Berger, the inventor of the EEG itself.

[citation needed] Berger took a cue from Ukrainian physiologist Vladimir Pravdich-Neminsky, who used a string galvanometer to create a photograph of the electrical activity of a dog's brain.

Later, he was approached by the United States Air Force to test the effects of a jet fuel that was known to cause seizures in humans.

[citation needed] Alpha wave biofeedback has gained interest for having some successes in humans for seizure suppression and for treatment of depression.

[35] Alpha waves again gained interest in regards to an engineering approach to the science fiction challenge of psychokinesis, i.e. control of movement of a physical object using energy emanating from a human brain.