scholarly journals Individual alpha frequency increases during a task but is unchanged by alpha-band flicker

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Gray ◽  
Tatiana A. Emmanouil
Keyword(s):  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Behavioral Measure ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Alpha Band ◽  
Frequency Bands ◽  
Alpha Frequency ◽  
Separate Source ◽  
Individual Alpha Frequency ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractVisual perception fluctuates in-synch with ongoing neural oscillations in the delta, theta, and alpha frequency bands of the human EEG. Supporting the relationship between alpha and perceptual sampling, recent work has demonstrated that variations in individual alpha frequency (IAF) correlate with the ability to discriminate one from two stimuli presented briefly in the same location. Other studies have found that after being presented with a flickering stimulus at alpha frequencies, perception of near-threshold stimuli fluctuates for a short time at the same frequency. Motivated by previous work, we were interested in whether this alpha entrainment involves shifts in IAF. While recording EEG, we tested whether two-flash discrimination (a behavioral correlate of IAF) can be influenced by ∼1s of rhythmic visual stimulation at two different alpha frequencies (8.3hz and 12.5hz). Speaking against the bottom-up malleability of IAF, we found no change in IAF during stimulation and no change in two-flash discrimination immediately afterwards. We also found synchronous activity that persisted after 12.5hz stimulation, which suggests that a separate source of alpha was entrained. Importantly, we replicated the correlation between IAF and two-flash discrimination in a no-stimulation condition, demonstrating the sensitivity of our behavioral measure. We additionally found that IAF increased during the task compared to rest, which demonstrates that IAF is influenced by top-down factors but is not involved in entrainment. In the framework of existing findings, we suggest that visual entrainment may involve ongoing perceptually-relevant oscillations from the delta to alpha frequency bands, serving to maintain rhythmic temporal expectations.

Individual Alpha Frequency Relates to the Sound-Induced Flash Illusion

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 565-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Keil ◽  
Daniel Senkowski
Keyword(s):  
Cortical Excitability ◽  
Multisensory Processing ◽  
Audiovisual Integration ◽  
Source Analysis ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Sensory Stimuli ◽  
Alpha Frequency ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Alpha Frequency ◽  
The Relationship

Ongoing neural oscillations reflect fluctuations of cortical excitability. A growing body of research has underlined the role of neural oscillations for stimulus processing. Neural oscillations in the alpha band have gained special interest in electrophysiological research on perception. Recent studies proposed the idea that neural oscillations provide temporal windows in which sensory stimuli can be perceptually integrated. This also includes multisensory integration. In the current high-density EEG-study we examined the relationship between the individual alpha frequency (IAF) and cross-modal audiovisual integration in the sound-induced flash illusion (SIFI). In 26 human volunteers we found a negative correlation between the IAF and the SIFI illusion rate. Individuals with a lower IAF showed higher audiovisual illusions. Source analysis suggested an involvement of the visual cortex, especially the calcarine sulcus, for this relationship. Our findings corroborate the notion that the IAF affects the cross-modal integration of auditory on visual stimuli in the SIFI. We integrate our findings with recent observations on the relationship between audiovisual integration and neural oscillations and suggest a multifaceted influence of neural oscillations on multisensory processing.

scholarly journals No changes in parieto-occipital alpha during neural phase locking to visual quasi-periodic theta-, alpha-, and beta-band stimulation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Keitel ◽  
Christopher SY Benwell ◽  
Gregor Thut ◽  
Joachim Gross
Keyword(s):  
Alpha Rhythm ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Phase Locking ◽  
Stimulation Frequency ◽  
Alpha Band ◽  
Human Visual Perception ◽  
Beta Band ◽  
Frequency Bands ◽  
Low Intensity ◽  
Increased Sensitivity

ABSTRACTRecent studies have probed the role of the parieto-occipital alpha rhythm (8 – 12 Hz) in human visual perception through attempts to drive its neural generators. To that end, paradigms have used high-intensity strictly-periodic visual stimulation that created strong predictions about future stimulus occurrences and repeatedly demonstrated perceptual consequences in line with an entrainment of parieto-occipital alpha. Our study, in turn, examined the case of alpha entrainment by non-predictive low-intensity quasi-periodic visual stimulation within theta-(4 – 7 Hz), alpha-(8 – 13 Hz) and beta (14 – 20 Hz) frequency bands, i.e. a class of stimuli that resemble the temporal characteristics of naturally occurring visual input more closely. We have previously reported substantial neural phase-locking in EEG recording during all three stimulation conditions. Here, we studied to what extent this phase-locking reflected an entrainment of intrinsic alpha rhythms in the same dataset. Specifically, we tested whether quasi-periodic visual stimulation affected several properties of parieto-occipital alpha generators. Speaking against an entrainment of intrinsic alpha rhythms by non-predictive low-intensity quasi-periodic visual stimulation, we found none of these properties to show differences between stimulation frequency bands. In particular, alpha band generators did not show increased sensitivity to alpha band stimulation and Bayesian inference corroborated evidence against an influence of stimulation frequency. Our results set boundary conditions for when and how to expect effects of entrainment of alpha generators and suggest that the parieto-occipital alpha rhythm may be more inert to external influences than previously thought.

scholarly journals Both ongoing alpha and visually induced gamma oscillations show reliable diversity in their across-site phase-relations

2015 ◽  
Vol 113 (5) ◽  
pp. 1556-1563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freek van Ede ◽  
Stan van Pelt ◽  
Pascal Fries ◽  
Eric Maris
Keyword(s):  
Phase Relation ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Gamma Oscillations ◽  
Phase Relations ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
High Signal ◽  
Noninvasive Methods ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Systems Neuroscience

Neural oscillations have emerged as one of the major electrophysiological phenomena investigated in cognitive and systems neuroscience. These oscillations are typically studied with regard to their amplitude, phase, and/or phase coupling. Here we demonstrate the existence of another property that is intrinsic to neural oscillations but has hitherto remained largely unexplored in cognitive and systems neuroscience. This pertains to the notion that these oscillations show reliable diversity in their phase-relations between neighboring recording sites (phase-relation diversity). In contrast to most previous work, we demonstrate that this diversity is restricted neither to low-frequency oscillations nor to periods outside of sensory stimulation. On the basis of magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings in humans, we show that this diversity is prominent not only for ongoing alpha oscillations (8–12 Hz) but also for gamma oscillations (50–70 Hz) that are induced by sustained visual stimulation. We further show that this diversity provides a dimension within electrophysiological data that, provided a sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio, does not covary with changes in amplitude. These observations place phase-relation diversity on the map as a prominent and general property of neural oscillations that, moreover, can be studied with noninvasive methods in healthy human volunteers. This opens important new avenues for investigating how neural oscillations contribute to the neural implementation of cognition and behavior.

scholarly journals Identifying robust and sensitive frequency bands for interrogating neural oscillations

NeuroImage ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 1319-1333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander J. Shackman ◽  
Brenton W. McMenamin ◽  
Jeffrey S. Maxwell ◽  
Lawrence L. Greischar ◽  
Richard J. Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Frequency Bands

scholarly journals Barycenter Theorem in Phase Characteristics of Symmetric and Asymmetric Windows

Symmetry ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 329
Author(s):  
Jiufei Luo ◽  
Haitao Xu ◽  
Kai Zheng ◽  
Xinyi Li ◽  
Song Feng
Keyword(s):  
Frequency Estimation ◽  
Random Noise ◽  
Estimation Algorithm ◽  
Frequency Component ◽  
Phase Response ◽  
Numeric Simulation ◽  
Simulation Results ◽  
The Time Domain ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Relationship

Asymmetric windows are of increasing interest to researchers because of the nonlinear and adjustable phase response, as well as alterable time delay. Short-time phase distortion can provide an essential improvement in speech coding, and also has better performance in speech recognition. The merits of asymmetric windows in the aspect of spectral behaviors have an important function in frequency component detection and parameter estimation. In this paper, the phase response of windows were further studied, and the phase characteristics of symmetric and asymmetric windows are described. The relationship between the barycenter of windows in the time domain, and the phase characteristic at the center of the main lobe in the frequency domain, was established. In light of the relationship, an improved version of the asymmetric window- based frequency estimation algorithm was proposed. The improved algorithm has advantages of straightforward implementation and computational efficiency. The numeric simulation results also indicate that the improved approach is more robust than the traditional method against additive random noise.

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