The relationship between alpha (8-13 Hz) and 1/fβ activity in spontaneous EEG during rest and dissociative gaseous anaesthesia

This research explores and models the dynamic response of the brain's electrical activity in response to behavioural and pharmacological perturbation. We demonstrate that it is possible to account for two dominant features: the alpha rhythm (8–13 Hz) and its associated attenuation between eyes-closed and eyes-open resting state, and the 1/fβ scaling of the power spectrum, by assuming that the recorded signal is generated by a summation of alpha band oscillatory processes that have a distribution of dampings. In doing so, we provide a novel way to model and understand the genesis of the brain's dynamical activity.