No Evidence for Phase-Specific Effects of 40 Hz HD–tACS on Multiple Object Tracking

Phase synchronization drives connectivity between neural oscillators, providing a flexible mechanism through which information can be effectively and selectively routed between task-relevant cortical areas. The ability to keep track of objects moving between the left and right visual hemifields, for example, requires the integration of information between the two cerebral hemispheres. Both animal and human studies have suggested that coherent (or phase-locked) gamma oscillations (30–80 Hz) might underlie this ability. While most human evidence has been strictly correlational, high-density transcranial alternating current stimulation (HD-tACS) has been used to manipulate ongoing interhemispheric gamma phase relationships. Previous research showed that 40 Hz tACS delivered bilaterally over human motion complex could bias the perception of a bistable ambiguous motion stimulus (Helfrich et al., 2014). Specifically, this work showed that in-phase (0° offset) stimulation boosted endogenous interhemispheric gamma coherence and biased perception toward the horizontal (whereby visual tokens moved between visual hemifields—requiring interhemispheric integration). By contrast, anti-phase (180° offset) stimulation decreased interhemispheric gamma coherence and biased perception toward the vertical (whereby tokens moved within separate visual hemifields). Here we devised a multiple object tracking arena comprised of four quadrants whereby discrete objects moved either entirely within the left and right visual hemifields, or could cross freely between visual hemifields, thus requiring interhemispheric integration. Using the same HD-tACS montages as Helfrich et al. (2014), we found no phase-specific effect of 40 Hz stimulation on overall tracking performance. While tracking performance was generally lower during between-hemifield trials (presumably reflecting a cost of integration), this difference was unchanged by in- vs. anti-phase stimulation. Our null results could be due to a failure to reliably modulate coherence in our study, or that our task does not rely as heavily on this network of coherent gamma oscillations as other visual integration paradigms.