The Phase of Ongoing EEG Oscillations Predicts Visual Perception

By Niko A. Busch, J. Dubois, R. VanRullen. Journal of Neuroscience, 2009

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Oscillations are ubiquitous in electrical recordings of brain activity. While the amplitude of ongoing oscillatory activity is known to correlate with various aspects of perception, the influence of oscillatory phase on perception remains unknown. In particular, since phase varies on a much faster timescale than the more sluggish amplitude fluctuations, phase effects could reveal the fine-grained neural mechanisms underlying perception. We presented brief flashes of light at the individual luminance threshold while EEG was recorded. Although the stimulus on each trial was identical, subjects detected approximately half of the flashes (hits) and entirely missed the other half (misses). Phase distributions across trials were compared between hits and misses. We found that shortly before stimulus onset, each of the two distributions exhibited significant phase concentration, but at different phase angles. This effect was strongest in the theta and alpha frequency bands. In this time–frequency range, oscillatory phase accounted for at least 16% of variability in detection performance and allowed the prediction of performance on the single-trial level. This finding indicates that the visual detection threshold fluctuates over time along with the phase of ongoing EEG activity. The results support the notion that ongoing oscillations shape our perception, possibly by providing a temporal reference frame for neural codes that rely on precise spike timing.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Sensory Systems

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/783594a11ca87fe0f2b21b4130f0aa54ddf5117f

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Citations in the corpus

Perceptual Cycles. (2016, background): “Figure I depicts a joint analysis of 10 distinct datasets testing the rhythmicity of very different visual perception tasks (involving threshold detection [10], threshold detection with attentional manipulation [12], transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) phosphene detection [13], visual search [23”
On the Role of Prestimulus Alpha Rhythms over Occipito-Parietal Areas in Visual Input Regulation: Correlation or Causation? (2010, background): “It is conceivable that target visibility might further vary with the time point of testing within an alpha cycle, because visual perception not only fluctuates with alpha power but also with alpha phase (Busch et al., 2009; Mathewson et al., 2009).”
Switching between internal and external modes: A multiscale learning principle (2017, background): “Sensitivity to ex-ternal visual stimuli appears to be particularly enhanced at the troughs of individual cycles (Busch, Dubois, & VanRullen, 2009; Jensen & Mazaheri, 2010).”
Shaping Functional Architecture by Oscillatory Alpha Activity: Gating by Inhibition (2010, background): “…et al., 1981; VanRullen and Koch, 2003), and it has been demonstrated that the phase of pre-stimulus alpha oscillations modulates visual detection (Busch et al., 2009; Mathewson et al., identity (ID) or orientation (OR) A B C D Figure 2 | Posterior alpha activity increases when the ventral…”
α-Oscillations in the monkey sensorimotor network influence discrimination performance by rhythmical inhibition of neuronal spiking (2011, background): “In support of this notion, it has recently been demonstrated that perception is modulated by the prestimulus phase of the α-rhythm (31, 32).”
Electrophysiological Imaging of Brain Activity and Connectivity – Challenges and Opportunities (2011, background): “EEG signals were recorded when brief flashes of light at the individual luminance threshold were presented to subjects [82].”
Tagging the Neuronal Entrainment to Beat and Meter (2011, neutral): “…event-related brain potentials that can be generated by these populations (Varela et al., 1981; Haig and Gordon, 1998; Makeig, 2002; Buzsa´ki and Draguhn, 2004; Lakatos et al., 2008; Schroeder et al., 2008; Sirota et al., 2008), but also a modulation of behavioral performance (Busch et al., 2009).”
The Theta-Gamma Neural Code (2013, positive): “2) probably accounts for why perception is dependent on alpha phase (Busch et al., 2009; Dugue et al., 2011; Mathewson et al., 2009).”
Rhythms For Cognition: Communication Through Coherence (2015, positive): “Indeed, detection performance of a single location fluctuates and can be partly predicted by the pre-stimulus phase of the ongoing 7.1 Hz component of frontal EEG (Busch et al., 2009).”
Neurophysiological and Computational Principles of Cortical Rhythms in Cognition (2010, background): “In human studies, it was reported that detection of a near-threshold stimulus depends on the stimulus onset time relative to the phase of ongoing 5–10 Hz oscillations in the frontal cortex (137) or parietal cortex (657).”
The Brain's Router: A Cortical Network Model of Serial Processing in the Primate Brain (2010, neutral): “We also hypothesized that in the case of low-frequency noise (,5Hz), the coincidence effect of external-stimulus and internal noise fluctuations, should manifest in a phase-locking relation of stimulus presentation to internal rhythms, as observed in both psychophysical [63,64] and neurophysiologica”
Rhythms of human attention and memory: An embedded process perspective (2022, background): “This complements former evidence that reduced EEG alpha power facilitated information processes when preceding relevant sensory input (e.g., Romei et al., 2008; Busch et al., 2009; see VanRullen, 2016, for a review; Griffiths et al., 2022).”