Local and interareal alpha and low-beta band oscillation dynamics underlie the bilateral field advantage in visual working memory

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2024-11

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en

Pages

19

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Cerebral Cortex, Volume 34, issue 11

Abstract

Visual working memory has a limited maximum capacity, which can be larger if stimuli are presented bilaterally vs. unilaterally. However, the neuronal mechanisms underlying this bilateral field advantage are not known. Visual working memory capacity is predicted by oscillatory delay-period activity, specifically, by a decrease in alpha (8 to 12 Hz) band amplitudes in posterior brain regions ref lecting attentional deployment and related shifts in excitation, as well as a concurrent increase of prefrontal oscillation amplitudes and interareal synchronization in multiple frequencies ref lecting active maintenance of information. Here, we asked whether posterior alpha suppression or prefrontal oscillation enhancement explains the bilateral field advantage. We recorded brain activity with high-density electroencephalography, while subjects (n = 26, 14 males) performed a visual working memory task with uni- and bilateral visual stimuli. The bilateral field advantage was associated with early suppression of low-alpha (6 to 10 Hz) and alpha–beta (10 to 17 Hz) band amplitudes, and a subsequent alpha–beta amplitude increase, which, along with a concurrent load-dependent interareal synchronization in the high-alpha band (10 to 15 Hz), correlated with hit rates and reaction times and thus predicted higher maximum capacities in bilateral than unilateral visual working memory. These results demonstrate that the electrophysiological basis of the bilateral field advantage in visual working memory is both in the changes in attentional deployment and enhanced interareal integration.

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Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024.

Keywords

bilateral field advantage, EEG, oscillation, synchronization, working memory, working memory capacity

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Citation

Sattelberger, J, Haque, H, Juvonen, J J, Siebenhühner, F, Palva, J M & Palva, S 2024, ' Local and interareal alpha and low-beta band oscillation dynamics underlie the bilateral field advantage in visual working memory ', Cerebral Cortex, vol. 34, no. 11, bhae448 . https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhae448