Biology subjects

Barne, L. C.

Publications and source records attributed to Barne, L. C..

6 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Sustained attention under load: Neurophysiological mechanisms and behavioural consequences

Sustained attention research demonstrates the negative consequences of declining task focus with time-on-task. Separate research demonstrates the critical role of perceptual load in task focus: increased perceptual load is shown to draw neural energy into task-relevant, rather than irrelevant, processing (Bruckmaier et al., 2020) thus improving task focus (Lavie, 2005). However, how perceptual load affects the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying sustained attention decline with time-on-task remains unknown. Moreover, research on the aperiodic component of EEG has linked the 1/f slope with excitation-inhibition (E/I) balance: steeper slopes reflecting reduced E/I ratio (Gao et al., 2017), but whether sustained attention decline can be attributed to a change in the aperiodic slope is an open question. Here we recorded EEG during gradual continuous-performance task (detecting infrequent mountain-among-city scenes), under low or high perceptual load (with or without overlaid salt-and-pepper noise, respectively), and analysed periodic and aperiodic components. Time-on-task resulted in a widespread increase in alpha power and a steeper 1/f slope in a left temporoparietal cluster, accompanied by reduced detection sensitivity, increased response variability, and increased mind wandering, with reduced thought detail. Perceptual load improved task focus, indexed by reduced mind wandering, but exacerbated the effect of time-on-task on detection sensitivity, and the 1/f slope was steeper with time-on-task in a right parieto-occipital cluster under increased load. Overall, these findings suggest that sustained attention decline with time-on-task can be attributed to depletion of neural energy needed for excitatory signalling, which is further drained with increased processing demands in tasks of high perceptual load.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Oscillatory dynamics of sustained attention states

Sustained attention allows concentration on a task over long periods of time. This ability fluctuates, with periods of effective focus ( in-the-zone) and periods of increased performance variability and susceptibility to errors ( out-of-the-zone). Little is known about the neural dynamics underlying these states and their fluctuations during sustained attention tasks. To address this, we had thirty young adults perform the gradual onset continuous performance task (gradCPT), during which their EEG and responses were recorded. States of sustained attention (out-vs. in-the-zone) were identified based on the variance time course of participants RT. Out-of-the-zone states were associated with increased errors of commission and reduced perceptual sensitivity compared to in-the-zone states, as expected. Importantly, a significant decline in theta oscillations at mid-prefrontal regions was found during out-of-the-zone (vs. in-the-zone) states over a [~]400 ms period around the transition point between stimuli, and the extent of this decline predicted commission errors and response bias. In addition, individual differences in the variability of midfrontal theta along the task were associated with RT variability. Finally, participants exhibiting greater theta variability showed a more pronounced decline in perceptual sensitivity when being out-of-the-zone and less stable RTs compared to those with lower variability. Our results suggest that states of diminished sustained attention, even during short lapses, are characterized by a reduction in midfrontal theta activity, and that fluctuations in this rhythm covary with fluctuations in attentional control.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Decoding trans-saccadic prediction error

We are constantly sampling our environment by moving our eyes, but our subjective experience of the world is stable and constant. Stimulus displacement during or shortly after a saccade often goes unnoticed, a phenomenon called the saccadic suppression of displacement. Although we fail to notice such displacements, our oculomotor system computes the prediction errors and adequately adjusts the gaze and future saccadic execution, a phenomenon known as saccadic adaptation. In the present study, we aimed to find a brain signature of the trans-saccadic prediction error that informs the motor system but not explicit perception. We asked participants (either sex) to report whether a visual target was displaced during a saccade while recording electroencephalography (EEG). Using multivariate pattern analysis, we were able to differentiate displacements from no displacements, even when participants failed to report the displacement. In other words, we found that trans-saccadic prediction error is represented in the EEG signal 100 ms after the displacement presentation, mainly in occipital and parieto-occipital channels, even in the absence of explicit perception of the displacement. Significance StatementStability in vision occurs even while performing saccades. One suggested mechanism for this counterintuitive visual phenomenon is that external displacement is suppressed during the retinal remapping caused by a saccade. Here, we shed light on the mechanisms of trans-saccadic stability by showing that displacement information is not entirely suppressed and specifically present in the early stages of visual processing. Such a signal is relevant and computed for oculomotor adjustment despite being neglected for perception.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Temporal prediction elicits rhythmic pre-activation of relevant sensory cortices

Being able to anticipate events before they happen facilitates stimulus processing. The anticipation of the contents of events is thought to be implemented by the elicitation of prestimulus templates in sensory cortex. In contrast, the anticipation of the timing of events is typically associated with entrainment of neural oscillations. It is so far unknown whether and in which conditions temporal expectations interact with feature-based expectations, and, consequently, whether entrainment modulates the generation of content-specific sensory templates. In this study, we investigated the role of temporal expectations in a sensory discrimination task. We presented participants with rhythmically interleaved visual and auditory streams of relevant and irrelevant stimuli while measuring neural activity using magnetoencephalography. We found no evidence that rhythmic stimulation induced prestimulus feature templates. However, we did observe clear anticipatory rhythmic pre-activation of the relevant sensory cortices. This oscillatory activity peaked at behaviourally relevant, in-phase, intervals. Our results suggest that temporal expectations about stimulus features do not behave similarly to explicitly cued, non-rhythmic, expectations; yet elicit a distinct form of modality-specific pre-activation. Graphical abstract O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=165 SRC="FIGDIR/small/347005v3_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (35K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@fce8corg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1c16c3corg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1a90d62org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1adaa17_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG The brain extracts temporal regularities from the environment to anticipate upcoming events. Furthermore, with prior knowledge about their contents, the brain is thought to leverage this by instantiating anticipatory sensory templates. We investigated if sensory templates occur in response to a rhythmic stimulus stream with predictable temporal structure. We found that temporal rhythmic predictions did not induce sensory templates, but rather modulated the excitability in early sensory cortices.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Prestimulus alpha power is related to the strength of stimulus representation

Spatial attention can modulate behavioural performance and is associated with several electrophysiological markers. In this study, we used multivariate pattern analysis in electrophysiology data to investigate the effects of covert spatial attention on the quality of stimulus processing and underlying mechanisms. Our results show that covert spatial attention led to (i) an anticipatory alpha power desynchronization; (ii) enhanced stimuli identity information. Moreover, we found that alpha power fluctuations in anticipation of the relevant stimuli boosted and prolonged the coding of stimulus identity.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

A common representation of time across visual andauditory modalities

Humans and non-human animals ability to process time on the scale of milliseconds and seconds is essential for adaptive behaviour. A central question of how brains keep track of time is how specific temporal information across different sensory modalities is. In the present study, we show that encoding of temporal intervals in auditory and visual modalities are qualitatively similar. Human participants were instructed to reproduce intervals in the range from 750 ms to 1500 ms marked by auditory or visual stimuli. Our behavioural results suggest that, although participants were more accurate in reproducing intervals marked by auditory stimuli, there was a strong correlation in performance between modalities. Using multivariate pattern analysis in scalp EEG, we show that activity during late periods of the intervals was similar within and between modalities. Critically, we show that a multivariate pattern classifier was able to accurately predict the elapsed interval, even when trained on an interval marked by a stimulus of a different sensory modality. Taken together, our results suggest that, while there are differences in the processing of intervals marked by auditory and visual stimuli, they also share a common neural representation.

neuroscience↗