We are used to thinking of the brain as a giant network of neurons, where information is transmitted through synapses from cell to cell. But such a picture may be incomplete. Researchers at the Picower Institute at MIT propose adding another level to it: the brain may process information using electrical waves that propagate across the cortex.
In August 2026, Earl Miller, Scott Brincat, and Jefferson Roy presented in The Journal of Neuroscience a theory of analog cognition and consciousness. According to it, traveling brain waves can quickly unite millions of neurons into working ensembles and rearrange their interactions without the need to change the synaptic connections themselves each time.
Synapses remain the foundation of brain function. But they are relatively stable, while the situation around us changes every second. The brain must instantly combine vision, sounds, bodily sensations, memory, and current goals. The authors suggest that it is waves that allow it to rapidly change the functional configuration of the existing neural network.
This idea fits well with the observation that neurons rarely have only one function. The same cell can be part of different ensembles depending on the task. Therefore, not only the question of which neuron is active matters, but also with whom it works at a given moment.
One mechanism for such coordination could be interactions between brain rhythms. Slower alpha and beta oscillations can influence fast gamma activity associated with sensory processing. At the same time, rhythms can propagate across the cortex as traveling waves, sequentially changing the conditions of neuronal activity along their path.
The most unusual part of the theory begins where these waves meet.
Like ordinary physical waves, they can superimpose on each other: in some places they amplify, in others they weaken. A complex spatiotemporal pattern emerges. Miller and his colleagues suggest that such interference may not be just a byproduct of brain function, but part of the computational process itself.
One can imagine it as ripples on water. If you throw several stones into a pond, the waves will intersect and create a new pattern, although the bottom and shores remain the same. Similarly, the brain can quickly create new functional configurations without physically restructuring the entire neural network.
Even more interesting is the possibility of reverse influence. Neurons create electric fields, but these fields, in turn, can affect the activity of other neurons—a phenomenon known as ephaptic interaction. This results in a closed dynamic system: neurons form waves, waves organize neurons, and the changed activity creates new waves.
It is here that the theory approaches the problem of consciousness.
The authors suggest that traveling waves help integrate local brain processes into a large-scale coherent state. Then consciousness may depend not only on what information is contained in neural activity, but also on how that activity is organized in time and space.
In favor of this idea, in particular, are studies of general anesthesia. Different anesthetics act on different molecular targets, but loss of consciousness is accompanied by disruption of the large-scale organization of brain waves. This does not prove that waves create consciousness, but it indicates that their coherent dynamics may be an important condition for the conscious state.
For now, this is precisely a theory, not a proven mechanism of consciousness. Researchers still need to show that interference of brain waves actually performs analog computations, rather than merely accompanying the work of neural networks.
But if the hypothesis is confirmed, it will noticeably change the view of the brain. Then, to understand thinking, it will not be enough to study only neurons, synapses, and individual cortical areas. One will have to take into account the physics of the nervous tissue itself—electric fields, rhythms, and wave motion.
And perhaps the main question of the science of consciousness will gradually change. Instead of searching for the place in the brain where consciousness resides, researchers will increasingly ask what dynamic pattern allows billions of cells to momentarily become a unified whole.
In this picture, the brain turns out to be not just a network transmitting signals. It resembles a constantly changing wave landscape, where the very dynamics of electrical activity can become part of the computation.
