Brain oscillations in perception, timing and action

•The multidimensional processing of information in the brain occurs through the coupling of multiple local circuits.•The main neural underpinning of the multidimensional processing of information is cross-frequency phase-amplitude coupling.•Coupling between perception and action determines the outcome of sensorimotor tasks.

Catching a thrown ball requires a tight coupling between perception and motor control. In this review, we examine multidimensional information processing across various perceptual and motor tasks. We summarize how perception, timing and action can be understood in terms of the coupling of gamma band oscillations, which represent the local activities of brain circuits, to a specific phase of long-range low-frequency oscillations. We propose a temporal window of integration that emerges from cross-frequency coupling that serves to produce optimized action.