Open AccessSpatial specificity of alpha oscillations in the human visual system
Author(s) -
Popov Tzvetan,
Gips Bart,
Kastner Sabine,
Jensen Ole
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
human brain mapping
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.005
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1097-0193
pISSN - 1065-9471
DOI - 10.1002/hbm.24712
Subject(s) - alpha (finance) , covert , neuroscience , magnetoencephalography , electroencephalography , visual cortex , modulation (music) , spatial organization , psychology , physics , retinotopy , human brain , biology , acoustics , developmental psychology , ecology , construct validity , linguistics , philosophy , psychometrics
Alpha oscillations are strongly modulated by spatial attention. To what extent, the generators of cortical alpha oscillations are spatially distributed and have selectivity that can be related to retinotopic organization is a matter of continuous scientific debate. In the present report, neuromagnetic activity was quantified by means of spatial location tuning functions from 30 participants engaged in a visuospatial attention task. A cue presented briefly in one of 16 locations directing covert spatial attention resulted in a robust modulation of posterior alpha oscillations. The distribution of the alpha sources approximated the retinotopic organization of the human visual system known from hemodynamic studies. Better performance in terms of target identification was associated with a more spatially constrained alpha modulation. The present findings demonstrate that the generators of posterior alpha oscillations are retinotopically organized when modulated by spatial attention.