α-Band Electroencephalographic Activity over Occipital Cortex Indexes Visuospatial Attention Bias and Predicts Visual Target Detection

By Gregor Thut, Annika Nietzel, Stephan A. Brandt, Alvaro Pascual-Leone. Journal of Neuroscience, 2006

1,542 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Covertly directing visual attention toward a spatial location in the absence of visual stimulation enhances future visual processing at the attended position. The neuronal correlates of these attention shifts involve modulation of neuronal “baseline” activity in early visual areas, presumably through top-down control from higher-order attentional systems. We used electroencephalography to study the largely unknown relationship between these neuronal modulations and behavioral outcome in an attention orienting paradigm. Covert visuospatial attention shifts to either a left or right peripheral position in the absence of visual stimulation resulted in differential modulations of oscillatory α-band (8–14 Hz) activity over left versus right posterior sites. These changes were driven by varying degrees of α-decreases being maximal contralateral to the attended position. When expressed as a lateralization index, these α-changes differed significantly between attention conditions, with negative values (α_right < α_left) indexing leftward and more positive values (α_left ≤ α_right) indexing rightward attention. Moreover, this index appeared deterministic for processing of forthcoming visual targets. Collapsed over trials, there was an advantage for left target processing in accordance with an overall negative bias in α-index values. Across trials, left targets were detected most rapidly when preceded by negative index values. Detection of right targets was fastest in trials with most positive values. Our data indicate that collateral modulations of posterior α-activity, the momentary bias of visuospatial attention, and imminent visual processing are linked. They suggest that the momentary direction of attention, predicting spatial biases in imminent visual processing, can be estimated from a lateralization index of posterior α-activity.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/480fc1fe2fa1eee4ed8a421bca395b589495b93c

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Citations in the corpus

The Theta-Gamma Neural Code (2013, positive): “This increase is associated with suppression of information that is irrelevant to the task (Thut et al., 2006) and with improved performance (Handel et al.”
To See or Not to See: Pre-stimulus Alpha Phase Predicts Visual Awareness (2009, background): “…have suggested the possible instantiation of attentional influences on visual processing by suppression of rhythmic oscillations in the electroencephalogram (EEG) frequency range (8 –12 Hz) (Worden et al., 2000; Fries et al., 2001; Sauseng et al., 2005; Thut et al., 2006; Romei et al., 2008).”
Mechanisms of selective inhibition in visual spatial attention are indexed by α‐band EEG synchronization (2007, methodology): “Anticipatory a-desynchronization, on the other hand, has been reported to dominate when upcoming visual stimuli have to be processed independently of cued positions in the absence of concurrent distracters, i.e. when no distracter has to be ignored (Sauseng et al., 2005; Thut et al., 2006).”
Increased Alpha-Band Power during the Retention of Shapes and Shape-Location Associations in Visual Short-Term Memory (2011, background): “…shown that shifts of covert spatial attention are accompanied by increased alpha-band oscillations over posterior sensors ipsilateral to the direction of attention, and decreased alpha contralateral to the focus of attention (see, e.g., Worden et al., 2000; Kelly et al., 2006; Thut et al., 2006).”
The Berlin Brain–Computer Interface: Non-Medical Uses of BCI Technology (2010, background): “Many studies in cognitive neuroscience have set out to find neuronal correlates that explain this variability (e.g., Fernández et al., 1999; Thut et al., 2006; Chen et al., 2008; Mathewson et al., 2009; Schubert et al., 2009).”
Neurophysiological and Computational Principles of Cortical Rhythms in Cognition (2010, background): “EEG or MEG recordings in human studies have shown that attention is associated with a reduced EEG alpha rhythm (152, 452, 780, 845, 946, 983, 1073) and increased gamma rhythm (224, 311, 852).”
The Phase of Ongoing EEG Oscillations Predicts Visual Perception (2009, background): “…are known to accompany changes of neural response amplitude (Başar et al., 1998), attentional state (Worden et al., 2000; Sauseng et al., 2005; Thut et al., 2006; Fries et al., 2008), and perceptual performance (Ergenoglu et al., 2004; Gonzalez Andino et al., 2005; Babiloni et al., 2006;…”
Prestimulus oscillations predict visual perception performance between and within subjects (2007, background): “, 2003) and decrease if a stimulus is expected (Worden et al., 2000; Sauseng et al., 2005a; Thut et al., 2006).”
Spontaneous fluctuations in posterior alpha-band EEG activity reflect variability in excitability of human visual areas. (2008, neutral): “…modulations of a-band activity (independently of perceptual outcome) shown to index systematic attention deployment to a lateralized position, namely differential amodulation over contra-versus ipsilateral posterior recording sites (e.g., Worden et al. 2000; Sauseng et al. 2005; Thut et al. 2006 ).”
Prestimulus Oscillatory Activity in the Alpha Band Predicts Visual Discrimination Ability (2008, background): “…it was demonstrated in visual cued attention experiments that alpha power increased in occipital areas ipsilateral to the hemifield attended to, compared with when this hemifield was ignored (Worden et al., 2000; Fu et al., 2001; Yamagishi et al., 2005; Kelly et al., 2006; Thut et al., 2006).”
Alpha Oscillations Correlate with the Successful Inhibition of Unattended Stimuli (2011, background): “monkey visual cortex have been reported to correlate with decreasing RTs when responding to visual stimuli (Zhang, Wang, Bressler, Chen, & Ding, 2008; Thut et al., 2006).”
Electrical Neuroimaging Reveals Timing of Attentional Control Activity in Human Brain (2008, background): “], but scalp-recorded oscillations in these frequency bands are primarily associated with the consequences of attention on activity in visual sensory areas [”
Top-down modulation of visual feature processing: The role of the inferior frontal junction (2010, methodology): “It has been suggested that alpha band (8–12 Hz) oscillations are involved in visual attention (Thut et al., 2006) and may be modulated via fronto-parietal networks (Capotosto et al., 2009).”