Beta waves and the moment I actually decide
Beta waves and the moment I actually decide
The prefrontal cortex as the place where “feeling” becomes “choosing”
(First-Person Consciousness • Decolonial Neuroscience • Brain Bee • The Feeling and Knowing Taá)
The Feeling and Knowing Taá — when my decision starts before my “yes”
I notice it in small things.
Before I say yes or no, my body has already moved a little:
a tiny tension in my jaw,
a slight change in breathing,
a micro-lean of the torso toward or away from something.
It feels like my decision does not start in the sentence I pronounce.
It starts in a subtle shift of energy — a change that my cortex seems to ride, not to command.
Taá, here, is this instant when I feel that something in me is already chosen, even if my mouth is still hesitating.
The study by E. Rassi, J. Rodriguez-Larios, C. Gret, H. Merchant, A. Elshafei and S. Haegens, published in iScience in 2025, touches exactly this moment:
“Beta-band frequency changes signal decisions in human prefrontal cortex.”
(search: Rassi Haegens 2025 iScience beta-band frequency decisions prefrontal)
What they show is simple and radical:
long before my conscious “I decided”, my beta-band activity in prefrontal cortex is already announcing how I will decide.
The scientific question: what do beta waves really mean when I choose?
For years, beta-band oscillations (around 13–30 Hz) were often reduced to:
“motor maintenance”,
“status quo”,
or some generic “top-down control”.
This study asks a sharper question:
Do changes in beta-band activity in human prefrontal cortex actually signal the unfolding of a decision — the precise moment where a tendency becomes a choice?
Not “decision” in the abstract, but decision as timed dynamics of neural energy:
when does the brain stop “considering” and start “committing”?
Methods and analyses — how they listened to beta
The researchers used EEG and a decision-making task designed to separate:
sensory evidence building up over time,
from the moment of commitment to a choice.
To reach that level of precision, they applied a full modern EEG pipeline:
1. Preprocessing with ICA
Independent Component Analysis (ICA) to remove eye blinks, muscle artifacts, and line noise.
This keeps the neural sources driving the true beta oscillations.
2. Spectral analysis via FFT
Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to decompose the EEG into frequency bands.
Tracking beta power changes over time while evidence accumulates and decisions are made.
3. Dimensionality reduction with PCA
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to identify dominant patterns across channels and trials,
isolating components where beta power cleanly tracks decision dynamics.
4. CSD and source-level inference (LORETA / sLORETA)
Current Source Density (CSD) to sharpen spatial resolution at the scalp, reducing volume conduction.
Source modeling (LORETA / sLORETA) to estimate that the critical beta changes are anchored in prefrontal regions, not just in motor cortex.
5. Decision modelling
Behavioural data were fitted with decision models (accumulation of evidence, thresholds).
Beta-band power in prefrontal cortex was then linked to:
the build-up of the decision process,
the timing of commitment,
and the confidence in the chosen option.
For a Brain Bee student:
they basically asked “how much beta, where, and when?”, and aligned that with “how sure, when, and what did you choose?”.
Main results: beta as the signature of “I will go this way”
The findings are powerful:
Beta-band power in prefrontal cortex decreases as the system approaches a decision threshold.
The timing of beta change predicts when the overt decision will happen.
The pattern of beta dynamics is related to how firmly the choice is taken (and how much evidence was accumulated).
In other words:
beta is not just “noise” or “idle motor rhythm”.
It tracks the transition from potential to commitment.
My prefrontal beta rhythm is like the sound of a bridge shifting from flexible vibration to a locked direction:
now we cross this way, not that one.
Reading this through our concepts
Mente Damasiana — when interoception becomes decision
In the Damasian mind, consciousness emerges from interoception + proprioception.
This study shows:
the decision is not just cognitive;
it is a reorganization of internal energy that can be seen in beta-band shifts.
That means:
the “I decide” is not an abstract software event.
It’s a specific modulation of living tissue in prefrontal circuits.
Eus Tensionais — each “I” has its beta pattern
We can read beta dynamics as signatures of Eus Tensionais:
one Eu Tensional is the cautious self, keeping beta high, maintaining the status quo.
another Eu Tensional is the explorer self, where beta relaxes earlier, allowing transitions and risk.
Each decision is a negotiation between these Eus Tensionais in the prefrontal cortex.
Zona 1, Zona 2, Zona 3
Zona 1 (automatic):
decisions with quick, stereotyped beta dynamics;
little exploration, fast commitment.
Zona 2 (fruição, creativity):
beta modulations are more flexible,
allowing longer evidence accumulation and richer evaluation.
Zona 3 (ideology, rigid scripts):
beta patterns can become locked,
defending beliefs even against evidence,
maintaining the same choice pattern irrespective of context.
The study doesn’t use this language, but the data fit well:
beta is how the prefrontal cortex negotiates between habit, openness, and rigid ideology.
Quorum Sensing Humano (QSH)
Even when I decide “alone”, my decision:
carries voices of others,
internalized norms,
expectations of community.
The prefrontal beta rhythm may be the neural echo of this quorum —
a kind of internal vote-counting that ends when enough evidence (and enough social narrative) says: go.
Yãy hã mĩy (Maxakali) — imitating to become
Yãy hã mĩy, in sua origem Maxakali, é “imitar o animal que se quer caçar”.
In our extended sense:
I “imitate” futures inside my brain before acting,
running internal simulations of consequences.
Beta changes in prefrontal cortex may be the rhythm of these internal rehearsals
— the moment where simulation closes and action begins.
DANA — DNA as living intelligence of thresholds
DANA, the intelligence of DNA, sets:
how excitable prefrontal networks are,
how easily beta relaxes or remains locked,
how flexible thresholds for change can be.
The article does not talk about genes directly, but we see:
individual differences in beta-based decision dynamics
are exactly where DANA leaves its trace as a biological style of choosing.
The Taá of decolonial insight — how even “decision” was colonized
While I read this paper, I also feel something else:
Many times, my words for decision were colonized.
Western science often reduces choosing to:
“rational calculation”,
“optimal behaviour”,
“response selection”,
ignoring how power, belief and fear shape the very beta rhythms we measure.
This is why so many neuroscientists avoid questions that would reveal what colonial science does not have a name for:
how ideology can freeze prefrontal dynamics in Zona 3,
how theology of guilt can hijack decision thresholds,
how economic pressure shapes what we even consider “possible”.
But when I feel my body before I think —
when Taá appears — I notice that there is no separation between Neuroscience, Politics and Spirituality (Utupe, Xapiri, living semantic memory).
What colonizes is not only history:
it is the vocabulary that forces my decision to be described as “rational” or “biased”, but never as a spiritual-political movement of a living body-territory.
Each new scientific discovery about beta and decision, when read with courage,
opens a tiny window out of Zona 3 and returns the body to what it always was:
a living territory of possible worlds choosing themselves.
How this adjusts our previous ideas
Before studies like Rassi et al. (2025), we might say:
“Decision is where cognition ‘wins’ against emotion.”
Now we need to revise:
Decision is an energy transition,
where feeling, memory, social norms and bodily state converge in prefrontal beta dynamics.
There is no “pure rational core” untouched by body, culture or power.
For our framework, this means:
Eus Tensionais are not metaphors — they are measurable dynamics.
Zona 2 is not “just a mood” — it has a distinct pattern of neural flexibility.
Zona 3 is not only ideology — it is chronic rigidity in the rhythms of decision.
Implications for education, health and politics in Latin America
Education
Teaching decision-making should not be reduced to “critical thinking” slides.
We must create embodied conditions (breathing, pauses, low threat) that favour Zona 2 and flexible beta dynamics.
Mental health
Depression, anxiety, and trauma can fix beta patterns in overly cautious or overly impulsive modes.
Interventions (psychotherapy, neurofeedback, tDCS, TMS) can be designed to restore healthy beta plasticity.
Public policy and democracy
Political propaganda often aims to lock people in Zona 3,
making decision thresholds rigid and fear-based.A decolonial neuroscience must expose how manipulation acts not only on beliefs, but on the very rhythms of prefrontal beta.
Neuro-rights
If we can read and modulate decision-related beta,
we need laws that protect people from being pushed into certain decisions through subtle neuromodulation without consent.
Keywords for scientific search
“Rassi Haegens 2025 beta-band frequency decisions human prefrontal cortex iScience EEG ICA FFT PCA CSD LORETA decision-making threshold oscillations”
