Training is known to improve our ability to make perceptual judgments (e.g. detect patterns in cluttered environments) and trigger plasticity in the visual system. The parietal cortex has been linked to critical early stages of this perceptual learning; yet, the interactions between parietal and visual areas that support learning remain unclear. Here, we employ transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with concurrently recorded electroencephalography (EEG) to entrain alpha oscillations in the parietal cortex and test the role of alpha oscillations in gating inter-areal interactions for perceptual learning.
We used stimulation frequencies that were matched or non-matched to each individual participant’s alpha frequency. We found that both matched and non-matched stimulation (compared to sham) improved perceptual performance during active stimulation. Sustained perceptual improvement was observed for individuals in the matched group and the non-matched group stimulated at lower frequencies compared to their individual peak alpha.
EEG results suggest that pre-stimulus alpha power at occipital sites was closely associated with the transient “online” stimulation. Sustained behavioural improvement following individualized intervention was associated with boosted alpha power and modulation of an early component of the visual evoked potential. Taken together, these results provide evidence that parietal-alpha mechanisms contribute to both short- and longer-term behavioural enhancement, potentially by optimising visual cortex processing to support target detection in cluttered environments.
We would like to thank Gregor Thut for instructive early conversations. This work was supported by grants to ZK from the Wellcome Trust [grant number 205067/Z/16/Z, 221633/Z/20/Z], the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [grant numbers H012508, BB/P021255/1]. EM was supported by UKRI Medical Research Council intramural funding [SUAG/093/G116768] and the Wellcome Trust [206495/Z/17/Z].
VL is supported by A*STAR under its Human Potential Programme Prenatal/Early Childhood Grant (H22P0M0002), and by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its Social Science & Humanities Research Fellowship (MOE2020-SSHR-008). ZK and VL are part of the Cambridge-NTU Centre for Lifelong learning and Individualised Cognition (CLIC) which is supported by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) programme. For the purpose of open access, the authors have applied for a CC BY public copyright license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing St, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Early Mental Potential and Wellbeing Research (EMPOWER) Centre, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, Singapore Department of Psychology, Justus-Liebig University, Giessen, Germany The authors declare no competing interests. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
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