RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Rhythmic Oscillations of Visual Contrast Sensitivity Synchronized with Action
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 7019
OP 7029
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4568-14.2015
VO 35
IS 18
A1 Alice Tomassini
A1 Donatella Spinelli
A1 Marco Jacono
A1 Giulio Sandini
A1 Maria Concetta Morrone
YR 2015
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/18/7019.abstract
AB It is well known that the motor and the sensory systems structure sensory data collection and cooperate to achieve an efficient integration and exchange of information. Increasing evidence suggests that both motor and sensory functions are regulated by rhythmic processes reflecting alternating states of neuronal excitability, and these may be involved in mediating sensory-motor interactions. Here we show an oscillatory fluctuation in early visual processing time locked with the execution of voluntary action, and, crucially, even for visual stimuli irrelevant to the motor task. Human participants were asked to perform a reaching movement toward a display and judge the orientation of a Gabor patch, near contrast threshold, briefly presented at random times before and during the reaching movement. When the data are temporally aligned to the onset of movement, visual contrast sensitivity oscillates with periodicity within the theta band. Importantly, the oscillations emerge during the motor planning stage, ∼500 ms before movement onset. We suggest that brain oscillatory dynamics may mediate an automatic coupling between early motor planning and early visual processing, possibly instrumental in linking and closing up the visual-motor control loop.