Beta oscillations, typically associated with goal-directed processing and motor output timing, are found to be transient and organized into intermittent high-power bursts. These bursts, rather than sustained oscillations, mediate timely functional inhibition, reflecting moment-to-moment variations in neural dynamics. Recent advances in burst analysis have revealed diversity in beta bursts, providing deeper insights into their function and underlying neural circuit activity motifs. The authors propose that brain-wide, spatiotemporal patterns of beta bursting reflect various cognitive operations and that their dynamics reveal nonlinear aspects of cortical processing. Beta bursts are implicated in transient inhibition during working memory (WM) control, attention, and action selection, suggesting a general role in top-down executive control. The intermittent nature of beta oscillations challenges traditional models of cognitive processes, emphasizing the importance of discrete states and nonlinear dynamics. Future research should focus on understanding the origins of beta bursts, their neural mechanisms, and their role in different cognitive tasks, as well as leveraging burst analysis in clinical contexts to identify biomarkers for brain diseases.Beta oscillations, typically associated with goal-directed processing and motor output timing, are found to be transient and organized into intermittent high-power bursts. These bursts, rather than sustained oscillations, mediate timely functional inhibition, reflecting moment-to-moment variations in neural dynamics. Recent advances in burst analysis have revealed diversity in beta bursts, providing deeper insights into their function and underlying neural circuit activity motifs. The authors propose that brain-wide, spatiotemporal patterns of beta bursting reflect various cognitive operations and that their dynamics reveal nonlinear aspects of cortical processing. Beta bursts are implicated in transient inhibition during working memory (WM) control, attention, and action selection, suggesting a general role in top-down executive control. The intermittent nature of beta oscillations challenges traditional models of cognitive processes, emphasizing the importance of discrete states and nonlinear dynamics. Future research should focus on understanding the origins of beta bursts, their neural mechanisms, and their role in different cognitive tasks, as well as leveraging burst analysis in clinical contexts to identify biomarkers for brain diseases.