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Modulations of ongoing alpha oscillations predict successful short-term visual memory encoding

Alpha-frequency band oscillations have been shown to be one of the most prominent aspects of neuronal ongoing oscillatory activity, as reflected by electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. First thought to reflect an idling state, a recent framework indicates that alpha power reflects cortical inhib...

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Autores principales: Nenert, Rodolphe, Viswanathan, Shivakumar, Dubuc, Darcy M., Visscher, Kristina M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3347628/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22586390
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00127
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author Nenert, Rodolphe
Viswanathan, Shivakumar
Dubuc, Darcy M.
Visscher, Kristina M.
author_facet Nenert, Rodolphe
Viswanathan, Shivakumar
Dubuc, Darcy M.
Visscher, Kristina M.
author_sort Nenert, Rodolphe
collection PubMed
description Alpha-frequency band oscillations have been shown to be one of the most prominent aspects of neuronal ongoing oscillatory activity, as reflected by electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. First thought to reflect an idling state, a recent framework indicates that alpha power reflects cortical inhibition. In the present study, the role of oscillations in the upper alpha-band (12 Hz) was investigated during a change-detection test of short-term visual memory. If alpha oscillations arise from a purely inhibitory process, higher alpha power before sample stimulus presentation would be expected to correlate with poorer performance. Instead, participants with faster reaction-times showed stronger alpha power before the sample stimulus in frontal and posterior regions. Additionally, faster participants showed stronger alpha desynchronization after the stimulus in a group of right frontal and left posterior electrodes. The same pattern of electrodes showed stronger alpha with higher working-memory load, so that when more items were processed, alpha power desynchronized faster after the stimulus. During memory maintenance, alpha power was greater when more items were held in memory, likely due to a faster resynchronization. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that the level of suppression of alpha power by stimulus presentation is an important factor for successfully encoding visual stimuli. The data are also consistent with a role for alpha as actively participating in attentional processes.
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spelling pubmed-33476282012-05-14 Modulations of ongoing alpha oscillations predict successful short-term visual memory encoding Nenert, Rodolphe Viswanathan, Shivakumar Dubuc, Darcy M. Visscher, Kristina M. Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience Alpha-frequency band oscillations have been shown to be one of the most prominent aspects of neuronal ongoing oscillatory activity, as reflected by electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. First thought to reflect an idling state, a recent framework indicates that alpha power reflects cortical inhibition. In the present study, the role of oscillations in the upper alpha-band (12 Hz) was investigated during a change-detection test of short-term visual memory. If alpha oscillations arise from a purely inhibitory process, higher alpha power before sample stimulus presentation would be expected to correlate with poorer performance. Instead, participants with faster reaction-times showed stronger alpha power before the sample stimulus in frontal and posterior regions. Additionally, faster participants showed stronger alpha desynchronization after the stimulus in a group of right frontal and left posterior electrodes. The same pattern of electrodes showed stronger alpha with higher working-memory load, so that when more items were processed, alpha power desynchronized faster after the stimulus. During memory maintenance, alpha power was greater when more items were held in memory, likely due to a faster resynchronization. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that the level of suppression of alpha power by stimulus presentation is an important factor for successfully encoding visual stimuli. The data are also consistent with a role for alpha as actively participating in attentional processes. Frontiers Media S.A. 2012-05-08 /pmc/articles/PMC3347628/ /pubmed/22586390 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00127 Text en Copyright © 2012 Nenert, Viswanathan, Dubuc and Visscher. http://www.frontiersin.org/licenseagreement This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Nenert, Rodolphe
Viswanathan, Shivakumar
Dubuc, Darcy M.
Visscher, Kristina M.
Modulations of ongoing alpha oscillations predict successful short-term visual memory encoding
title Modulations of ongoing alpha oscillations predict successful short-term visual memory encoding
title_full Modulations of ongoing alpha oscillations predict successful short-term visual memory encoding
title_fullStr Modulations of ongoing alpha oscillations predict successful short-term visual memory encoding
title_full_unstemmed Modulations of ongoing alpha oscillations predict successful short-term visual memory encoding
title_short Modulations of ongoing alpha oscillations predict successful short-term visual memory encoding
title_sort modulations of ongoing alpha oscillations predict successful short-term visual memory encoding
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3347628/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22586390
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00127
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