While α oscillations positively correlate with DMN activity, they are known to negatively correlate with visual cortical activity (Klimesch et al., 2007; Jensen and Mazaheri, 2010; Lange et al., 2013). α Oscillations (originating in the sensory cortex and thalamus) play a key role in visual inhibition by suppressing cortical excitation and feedforward propagations (Klimesch et al., 2007; Palva and Palva, 2007; Tang et al., 2007; Jensen and Mazaheri, 2010; Foxe and Snyder, 2011; Klimesch, 2012; Hillebrand et al., 2016; Johnson et al., 2017). This active function of α oscillations can present a second mechanism, visual cortical inhibition, to support DMN activity. That is, by suppressing visual processing, α oscillations could protect the DMN from environmental disruptions.
