Modality-specific tracking of attention and sensory statistics in the human electrophysiological spectral exponent

A hallmark of electrophysiological brain activity is its 1/f-like spectrum – power decreases with increasing frequency. The steepness of this ‘roll-off’ is approximated by the spectral exponent, which in invasively recorded neural populations reflects the balance of excitatory to inhibitory neural a...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Leonhard Waschke, Thomas Donoghue, Lorenz Fiedler, Sydney Smith, Douglas D Garrett, Bradley Voytek, Jonas Obleser
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications Ltd 2021
Materias:
EEG
R
Q
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/93aeb067c24743a4bcc83d5d347fbcf9
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:A hallmark of electrophysiological brain activity is its 1/f-like spectrum – power decreases with increasing frequency. The steepness of this ‘roll-off’ is approximated by the spectral exponent, which in invasively recorded neural populations reflects the balance of excitatory to inhibitory neural activity (E:I balance). Here, we first establish that the spectral exponent of non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) recordings is highly sensitive to general (i.e., anaesthesia-driven) changes in E:I balance. Building on the EEG spectral exponent as a viable marker of E:I, we then demonstrate its sensitivity to the focus of selective attention in an EEG experiment during which participants detected targets in simultaneous audio-visual noise. In addition to these endogenous changes in E:I balance, EEG spectral exponents over auditory and visual sensory cortices also tracked auditory and visual stimulus spectral exponents, respectively. Individuals’ degree of this selective stimulus–brain coupling in spectral exponents predicted behavioural performance. Our results highlight the rich information contained in 1/f-like neural activity, providing a window into diverse neural processes previously thought to be inaccessible in non-invasive human recordings.