Frequency-specific transcranial neuromodulation of oscillatory alpha power alters and predicts human visuospatial attention performance

DOI

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at 10Hz influences spatial attention. However, the neural mechanisms by which tACS modulates spatial attention remain poorly understood. Here, we applied high-definition tACS at the individual alpha frequency (IAF), two control frequencies (IAF+/-2Hz) and sham to the left posterior parietal cortex and measured its effects on visuospatial attention performance as well as alpha power (using electroencephalography, EEG). Our results revealed a leftward lateralization of alpha power relative to sham. At a high value of leftward alpha lateralization, we also observed a leftward attention bias, which differed from sham. Moreover, the magnitude of the alpha lateralization effect predicted the attention bias. These effects occurred for tACS at IAF but not for the control frequencies. This suggests that tACS operates through oscillatory interactions with ongoing brain rhythms in line with synchronization theory. Our results also highlight the importance of personalized stimulation protocols, especially in potential clinical settings.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.34894/3EDUG0
Metadata Access https://dataverse.nl/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=doi:10.34894/3EDUG0
Provenance
Creator Kemmerer, S.K. ORCID logo; Sack, A.T. ORCID logo; de Graaf, T.A. ORCID logo; De Weerd, P. ORCID logo; Schuhmann, T ORCID logo
Publisher DataverseNL
Contributor Kemmerer, T.A.; faculty data manager FPN
Publication Year 2020
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess
OpenAccess false
Contact Kemmerer, T.A. (Maastricht University); faculty data manager FPN (Maastricht University)
Representation
Resource Type experimental data; Dataset
Format application/zip; application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
Size 7735; 1389640888; 205229319; 60093
Version 2.0
Discipline Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Aquaculture; Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Aquaculture and Veterinary Medicine; Life Sciences; Social Sciences; Social and Behavioural Sciences; Soil Sciences