2019 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

13-16 September 2019    Berlin, Germany

Technical Program

Paper Detail

Paper: GS-3.1
Session: Contributed Talks 5-6
Location: H0104
Session Time: Sunday, September 15, 09:50 - 10:30
Presentation Time:Sunday, September 15, 09:50 - 10:10
Presentation: Oral
Publication: 2019 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, 13-16 September 2019, Berlin, Germany
Paper Title: Alpha/beta power decreases track the fidelity of stimulus-specific information
Manuscript:  Click here to view manuscript
View Video: Video
License: Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32470/CCN.2019.1199-0
Authors: Benjamin J. Griffiths, Stephen D. Mayhew, Karen J. Mullinger, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; João Jorge, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland; Ian Charest, Maria Wimber, Simon Hanslmayr, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Abstract: Massed synchronised neuronal firing is detrimental to information processing. When networks of task-irrelevant neurons fire in unison, they mask the signal generated by task-critical neurons. On a macroscopic level, mass synchronisation of these neurons can contribute to the ubiquitous alpha/beta (8-30Hz) oscillations. Reductions in the amplitude of these oscillations, therefore, may reflect a boost in the processing of high-fidelity information within the cortex. Here, we test this hypothesis. Twenty-one participants completed an associative memory task while undergoing simultaneous EEG-fMRI recordings. Using representational similarity analysis, we quantified the amount of stimulus-specific information represented within the BOLD signal on every trial. When correlating this metric with concurrently-recorded alpha/beta power, we found that as alpha/beta power decreased, our metric of stimulus-specific information increased. We observed this phenomenon during both visual perception and episodic memory retrieval. Further analysis revealed that this effect was better explained by alpha/beta power decreases providing favourable conditions for information processing, rather than directly representing information. Together, these results indicate that alpha/beta power decreases parametrically track the fidelity stimulus-specific information represented within the cortex.