Oscillatory Brain Activity and the Deployment of Attention
Session Chair
Location: Festsaal - 1/16/25, 10:00 AM - 1/16/25, 10:30 AM (Europe/Berlin) (30 minutes)
Oscillatory Brain Activity and the Deployment of Attention
John J. Foxe, PhD
Killian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Chair in Neuroscience Director, Ernest J. Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience Director, Golisano Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities Institute Chair, Department of Neuroscience at University of Rochester
Killian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Chair in Neuroscience Director, Ernest J. Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience Director, Golisano Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities Institute Chair, Department of Neuroscience at University of Rochester

John Foxe is the Kilian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Chair in Neuroscience, Director of The Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, Director of the Golisano Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Institute and serves as Chair of the Department of Neuroscience at The University of Rochester. His research investigates the neurobiological bases of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric conditions such as Autism and Schizophrenia. He uses electrophysiological and neuroimaging techniques to understand how inputs from the various sensory systems are combined in the brain, and what happens when these multisensory integration abilities are impacted by disease.

John has authored more than 340 research and clinical papers, book chapters, commentaries, and proceedings and serves as editor-in-chief of The European Journal of Neuroscience. Before joining the University in 2015, he was director of research for the Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Originally from Dublin Ireland, John read English and History at University College Dublin (1987) before completing his BS degree at Iona College, New Rochelle (1989). He obtained his MS and PhD in Neuroscience from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City (1999).

Both animal intracranial recordings and human scalp electrophysiological recordings make clear that neural oscillatory mechanisms play a critical role in sensory-perceptual and cognitive functions, including selective attention, working memory, and feature binding, to name a few. A variety of cognitive effects that are associated with specific brain oscillations have been reported, which range in spectral, temporal, and spatial characteristics depending on the context. A major focus of our group’s work has been on investigating the role of alpha-band oscillatory activity (8-14 Hz) as a potential attentional suppression mechanism. Our work has shown that 1) phasic increases in alpha-band power are associated with suppression of visual inputs when individuals need to selectively attend to auditory inputs (i.e. cross-sensory suppression), 2) that topographically/retinotopically specific increases in alpha-power are associated with suppressing irrelevant visual inputs from specific parts of space when other parts of space contain the information to be acted upon (i.e. visuo-spatial suppression), and 3) that increases in alpha power within a given visual processing stream (i.e. dorsal versus ventral) results in feature-specific attentional deployments (i.e. feature-based suppression). In this presentation, we will discuss the evidence for a prominent role in attentional suppression for alpha-band oscillatory activity, and present evidence for deficits in this ability in certain clinical populations (e.g. Autism Spectrum Disorder) and enhancements of it in other populations (e.g. Deafness).