Biology subjects

Herrmann, C. S.

Publications and source records attributed to Herrmann, C. S..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

Facilitated event-related power-modulations during transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) revealed by concurrent tACS-MEG

Non-invasive approaches to modulate oscillatory activity in the brain receive growing popularity in the scientific community. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) has been shown to modulate neural oscillations in a frequency specific manner. Due to a massive stimulation artifact at the targeted frequency, only little is known about effects of tACS during stimulation. I.e. it remains unclear how the continuous application of tACS affects event-related oscillations during cognitive tasks. Depending on whether tACS merely affects pre- or post-stimulus oscillations or both, stimulation can alter patterns of event-related oscillatory dynamics in various directions or may not affect them at all. Thus, knowledge about these directions is crucial to plan, predict and understand outcomes of solely behavioral tACS experiments. Here, a recently proposed procedure to suppress tACS artifacts by projecting MEG data into source space using spatial filtering was utilized to recover event-related power modulations in the alpha band during a mental rotation task. MEG of twenty-five volunteers was continuously recorded. After 10 minutes of baseline measurement, they received either 20 minutes of tACS at individual alpha frequency or sham stimulation. Another 40 minutes of MEG were acquired thereafter. Data were projected into source space and carefully examined for residual artifacts. Results revealed strong facilitation of event-related power modulations in the alpha band during tACS application. Data provide first direct evidence, that tACS does not counteract top-down suppression of intrinsic oscillations, but rather enhances pre-existent power modulations within the range of the individual alpha (=stimulation) frequency.\n\nSignificanceTranscranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) is increasingly used in cognitive neuroscience to study the causal role of brain oscillations and cognition. However, online effects of tACS so far largely remain a black box due to an intense electromagnetic artifact encountered during stimulation. The current study is the first to employ a spatial filtering approach to recover and systematically study event-related oscillatory dynamics during tACS, which can potentially be altered in various directions. TACS facilitated pre-existing patterns of oscillatory dynamics during the employed mental rotation task, but does not counteract or overwrite them. In addition, control analysis and a measure to quantify tACS artifact suppression are provided that can enrich future studies investigating tACS online effects.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

Non-linear transfer characteristics of stimulation and recording hardware account for spurious low-frequency artifacts during amplitude modulated transcranial alternating current stimulation (AM-tACS)

Amplitude modulated transcranial alternating current stimulation (AM-tACS) has been recently proposed as a possible solution to overcome the pronounced stimulation artifact encountered when recording brain activity during tACS. In theory, AM-tACS does not entail power at its modulating frequency, thus avoiding the problem of spectral overlap between brain signal of interest and stimulation artifact. However, the current study demonstrates how weak non-linear transfer characteristics inherent in stimulation and recording hardware can reintroduce spurious artifacts at the modulation frequency. The input-output transfer functions (TFs) of different stimulation setups were measured. The setups included basic recordings of signal-generator and stimulator outputs as well as M/EEG phantom measurements. 6th-degree polynomial regression models were fitted to model the input-output TFs of each setup. The resulting TF models were applied to digitally generated AM-tACS signals to predict the location of spurious artifacts in the spectrum. All four setups measured for the study exhibited low-frequency artifacts at the modulation frequency and its harmonics when recording AM-tACS. Fitted TF models showed non-linear contributions significantly different from zero (all p < .05) and successfully predicted the frequency of artifacts observed in AM-signal recordings. Results suggest that even weak non-linearities of stimulation and recording hardware can lead to spurious artifacts at the modulation frequency and its harmonics. Thus, findings emphasize the need for more linear stimulation devices for AM-tACS and careful analysis procedures, which take into account these low-frequency artifacts to avoid confusion with effects of AM-tACS on the brain.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Transcranial alternating current stimulation modulates auditory temporal resolution in elderly people

Recent research provides evidence for a functional role of brain oscillations for perception. For example, auditory temporal resolution seems to be linked to individual gamma frequency of auditory cortex. Individual gamma frequency not only correlates with performance in between-channel gap detection tasks but can be modulated via auditory transcranial alternating current stimulation. Modulation of individual gamma frequency is accompanied by an improvement in gap detection performance. Aging changes electrophysiological frequency components and sensory processing mechanisms. Therefore, we conducted a study to investigate the link between individual gamma frequency and gap detection performance in elderly people using auditory transcranial alternating current stimulation. In a within-subject design, nine participants were electrically stimulated with two individualized transcranial alternating current stimulation frequencies: 3 Hz above their individual gamma frequency (experimental condition) and 4 Hz below their individual gamma frequency (control condition) while they were performing a between-channel gap detection task. As expected, individual gamma frequencies correlated significantly with gap detection performance at baseline and in the experimental condition, transcranial alternating current stimulation modulated gap detection performance. In the control condition, stimulation did not modulate gap detection performance. In addition, in elderly, the effect of transcranial alternating current stimulation on auditory temporal resolution seems to be dependent on endogenous frequencies in auditory cortex: elderlies with slower individual gamma frequencies and lower auditory temporal resolution profit from auditory transcranial alternating current stimulation and show increased gap detection performance during stimulation. Our results strongly suggest individualized transcranial alternating current stimulation protocols for successful modulation of performance.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Temporal expectation modulates cortical dynamics of sensory memory

Increased memory load is often signified by enhanced neural oscillatory power in the alpha range (8-13 Hz), taken to reflect inhibition of task-irrelevant brain regions. The corresponding neural correlates of memory decay, however, are not yet well-understood. Here, we investigated auditory sensory memory decay using a delayed matching-to-sample task with pure-tone sequences. First, in a behavioral experiment we modeled memory behavior over six different delay-phase durations. Second, in a magnetoencephalography (MEG) experiment, we assessed alpha-power modulations over three different delay-phase durations. In both experiments, the temporal expectation for the to-be-remembered sound was manipulated, so that it was either temporally expected or not. In both studies, memory performance declined over time but this decline was less strong under a more precise temporal expectation. Similarly, patterns of alpha power in and alpha-tuned connectivity between sensory cortices changed parametrically with delay duration (i.e., decrease in occipito-parietal regions, increase in temporal regions). Notably, temporal expectation counteracted alpha-power decline in heteromodal brain areas (i.e., supramarginal gyrus), in line with its memory-decay counteracting effect on performance. Correspondingly, temporal expectation also boosted alpha connectivity within attention networks known to play an active role during memory maintenance. The present data outline how patterns of alpha power orchestrate sensory memory decay, and encourage a refined perspective on alpha power and its inhibitory role across brain space and time.\n\nSignificance StatementOur sensory memories of the physical world fade quickly. We show here that this decay of sensory memory can be counteracted by so-called temporal expectation, that is, knowledge of when to expect the to-be-remembered sensory event (here, brief sound patterns). We also show that distinct patterns and modulations of neural oscillations in the \"alpha\" (8-13 Hz) range index both, the degree of memory decay, and any benefit from temporal expectation, both of which affect memory performance. Critically, spatially distributed cortical patterns of alpha power, with opposing effects in auditory vs. visual sensory cortices and alpha-tuned connectivity changes within supramodal attention networks, reflect the allocation of neural resources as sensory memory representations fade.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Envelope-tACS modulates intelligibility of speech in noise

Cortical entrainment of the auditory cortex to the broad-band temporal envelope of a speech signal is crucial for speech comprehension. This entrainment results in phases of high and low neural excitability which structure and decode the incoming speech signal. Entrainment to speech is strongest in the theta frequency range (4-8 Hz), the average frequency of the speech envelope. If a speech signal is degraded, for example masked by irrelevant information such as noise, entrainment to the speech envelope is weaker and speech intelligibility declines.\n\nBesides perceptually evoked cortical entrainment, transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) can entrain neural oscillations by applying an electric signal to the brain. Accordingly, tACS-induced entrainment in auditory cortex has been shown to improve auditory perception. The aim of the current study was to externally modulate speech intelligibility by means of tACS such that the electric current corresponds to the envelope of the presented speech stream.\n\nParticipants performed the Oldenburg sentence test with sentences presented in noise in combination with tACS. Critically, the time lag between sentence presentation and tACS was manipulated from 0 to 250 ms in 50-ms steps (auditory stimuli were simultaneous to or preceded tACS).\n\nFirst, we were able to show that envelope-tACS modulated sentence comprehension such that on average sentence comprehension at the time lag of the best performance was significantly better than sentence comprehension of the worst performance. Second, sentence comprehension across time lags was modulated sinusoidally.\n\nIn sum, envelope tACS modulates intelligibility of speech in noise presumably by enhancing (time lag with in-phase stimulation) and disrupting (time lag with out-of-phase stimulation) cortical entrainment to the speech envelope in auditory cortex.

neuroscience↗