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This cross-trial variability has been thought to be due to neuromodulation, uncertainty encoding, and\/or changes in cortical excitability. Here, we report evidence that it is also due to fluctuations in ephaptic influences of mesoscale electric fields. We analyzed LFP data from the PFC recorded during a spatial delay saccade task. We constructed a model that describes the electric field close to the cortical patch given the neural activity that generates it. This revealed that field-to-neuron interactions (ephaptic coupling strength) were stronger than neuron-to-field, and it correlated trial-by-trial changes in oscillatory power. This suggests a form of circular causality where neural activity and extracellular electric fields continuously shape each other. These results further suggest that mesoscale ephaptic effects help drive the formation of memory ensembles, a prediction of the cytoelectric coupling hypothesis.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/cercor\/bhag098","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,7]],"date-time":"2026-07-07T12:13:19Z","timestamp":1783426399000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Ephaptic coupling can explain variability in neural activity"],"prefix":"10.1093","volume":"36","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6865-8103","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Dimitris","family":"A Pinotsis","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, City St George\u2019s\u2014University of London , Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB ,","place":["United Kingdom"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Earl","family":"K Miller","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Picower Institute for Learning & Memory and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , 43 Vassar St, Cambridge, MA 02139 ,","place":["United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,7]]},"reference":[{"key":"2026070708085148700_ref1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1119\/1.15378","volume-title":"Handbook of mathematical functions with formulas, graphs, and mathematical tables","author":"Abramowitz","year":"1988"},{"key":"2026070708085148700_ref2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"77","DOI":"10.1007\/BF00337259","article-title":"Dynamics of pattern formation in lateral-inhibition type neural fields","volume":"27","author":"Amari","year":"1977","journal-title":"Biol Cybern"},{"key":"2026070708085148700_ref3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"95","DOI":"10.1016\/j.conb.2014.09.002","article-title":"Ephaptic coupling to endogenous electric field activity: why bother?","volume":"31","author":"Anastassiou","year":"2015","journal-title":"Curr Opin Neurobiol"},{"key":"2026070708085148700_ref4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1523\/ENEURO.0292-17.2017","article-title":"The magnitude of trial-by-trial neural variability is reproducible over time and across tasks in humans","volume":"4","author":"Arazi","year":"2017","journal-title":"eneuro."},{"key":"2026070708085148700_ref5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3978","DOI":"10.1523\/JNEUROSCI.2517-14.2016","article-title":"Brain signal variability differentially affects cognitive flexibility and cognitive stability","volume":"36","author":"Armbruster-Gen\u00e7","year":"2016","journal-title":"J Neurosci"},{"key":"2026070708085148700_ref6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"50","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jneumeth.2013.10.018","article-title":"The MVGC multivariate Granger causality toolbox: a new approach to Granger-causal inference","volume":"223","author":"Barnett","year":"2014","journal-title":"J Neurosci Methods"},{"key":"2026070708085148700_ref7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1142","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neuron.2008.09.021","article-title":"Probabilistic population codes for Bayesian decision making","volume":"60","author":"Beck","year":"2008","journal-title":"Neuron."},{"key":"2026070708085148700_ref8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"490","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neuron.2018.10.002","article-title":"What is a cognitive map? 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