Aperiodic EEG Predicts Variability of Visual Temporal Processing.
J Neurosci
; 44(40)2024 Oct 02.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39168653
ABSTRACT
The human brain exhibits both oscillatory and aperiodic, or 1/f, activity. Although a large body of research has focused on the relationship between brain rhythms and sensory processes, aperiodic activity has often been overlooked as functionally irrelevant. Prompted by recent findings linking aperiodic activity to the balance between neural excitation and inhibition, we investigated its effects on the temporal resolution of perception. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from participants (both sexes) during the resting state and a task in which they detected the presence of two flashes separated by variable interstimulus intervals. Two-flash discrimination accuracy typically follows a sigmoid function whose steepness reflects perceptual variability or inconsistent integration/segregation of the stimuli. We found that individual differences in the steepness of the psychometric function correlated with EEG aperiodic exponents over posterior scalp sites. In other words, participants with flatter EEG spectra (i.e., greater neural excitation) exhibited increased sensory noise, resulting in shallower psychometric curves. Our finding suggests that aperiodic EEG is linked to sensory integration processes usually attributed to the rhythmic inhibition of neural oscillations. Overall, this correspondence between aperiodic neural excitation and behavioral measures of sensory noise provides a more comprehensive explanation of the relationship between brain activity and sensory integration and represents an important extension to theories of how the brain samples sensory input over time.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Estimulação Luminosa
/
Percepção Visual
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Eletroencefalografia
Limite:
Adult
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Female
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Humans
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Male
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Neurosci
/
J. neurosci
/
Journal of neuroscience
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Emirados Árabes Unidos