Center for Neuroscience and Cognitive systems Neural computation Lab

EEG phase patterns reflect the selectivity of neural firing

Benedict Shien Wei Ng, Nikos K. Logothesis and Christoph Kayser (2013) Cerebral cortex

Rovereto, 21.03.14

oscillatory signals (EEG,MEG,LFP) correlates with several states/behaviours

in humans and animals
review: [Ward (2003) - Neuroscience]

oscillatory signals (OS) are supposed to implement cognitive processes

example: sensory representation (neural entrainment in auditory cortex)
[Gross et al. (2013) PloS Biol.]
review: [Koepsell et al. (2010) Front. Neurosc.]

example: routing of information (communication-by-coherence hypothesis)

[Chalk et al. (2010) Neuron ; Fries (2005) Trends Cog. Sci. ]
review: [Akam & Kullmann (2010) Neuron]

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | INTRODUCTION

issues about oscillation: origin, mechanisms, function

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | INTRODUCTION

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | INTRODUCTION

In general there are both

proves for the OS conveying information about neural activity by its amplitude at a
particular frequency
[Whittingstall & Logothetis (2009) - Neuron]

proves for the OS conveing information about neural activity by its phase
[OKeefe n & Recce (1993) - Hippocampus]

proves for the amplitude and phase of OS conveying independent information about
behaviour
[Schyns et a. (2011) PloS Biology]

proves for the amplitude and phase of OS conveying independent information about
neural activity
[Mazzoni et al. (2009) - NeuroImage]

In this study:
assess to what extent phase patterns selectivity correlates with neural
firing selectivity to incoming auditory stimuli in monkeys and
humans
Results........... selectivities correlate!
Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | AIM

stimulation protocol

recording setting
neural signal obtained

21 randomply concatenated sounds (animal vocalization ,

environmental sounds, human speech), 60 trials per
concatenation
intracranical recording in macaque, EEG in humans
LFP + firing activity, EEG

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | RESULTS: DATA

phase1:

stimulate, with different

andrecordthebrain

stimuli,

phase2:

choose a source(es.: site/neuron/set

ofneurons)

phase3:

choose

phase4:

onthebasisofsourceresponse,build
afeaturespaceonwhichyoutraina
linear classifier that discriminates
a property of the stimuli eliciting
the response. Decoding matrix and
accuracy measure the discrimination
performance

a representation for the

response (es.: firing rate, spike
times,OSbandpower,OSphase)

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | METHODS: DECODING APPROACH

if your classifier obtains

good test accuracy on novel,
unseen stimuli, you infer
that the elicited source
response conveys
information about the
property of sensory elements

HUMANS
EEG

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | HUMANS

best decoding is at low frequencies

phase is a better encoder than power
only phase encodes significantly non-null
information

theta band oscillation phase can be avalid

encoder (through stimulus entrainment)
even in the absence of changes in
oscillatory power

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | RESULTS ANALYSIS - MONKEYS

MONKEYS
LFP - SPIKES

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | MONKEYS

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phase is a better encoder than

power
both phase and amplitude convey
significant non-null information
firing rate and phase have
comparable decoding accuracy

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | RESULTS ANALYSIS - HUMANS

oscillation phase decoding accuracy is more correlated to firing

decoding accuracy than the oscillation amplitude decoding accuracy,
both for EEG and LFP
This is true both for correlations of full decoding matrices, or just of their diagonals

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | RESULTS COMPARISON

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Can phase of OS convey information about the auditory stimuli?

yes. both for LFP and EEG

Can amplitude of OS convey information about the same auditory stimuli?

yes, but just with LFP

Do phase and amplitude of OS convey similar amount information about the selectivity of firing?
no. OS power convey less or unsignificant infos

What is interesting?

direct comparison of multiple responses: EEG, LFP, neural firing

correlation of decoding accuracies from multiple responses used as estimator of their stimulus selectivity
decoding matrices used as medium to abstract from peculiar mechanism and focus on function, i.e. representation

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | CONCLUSION - COMMENT

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but

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | !!!

14

Decoding accuracies are low

Crossmodal investigation based on response selectivity, not on general decoding accuracies
Crossmodal investigation based on correlation
Most signal power in the delta band

So we can:
Use information theory to relate different decoding matrices and accuracies
Use information theory to directly measure the amount of information conveyed by different responses
Carry out similar analysis, changing dataset, stimulation protocol, stimulation medium
...investigate origin and mechanisms

Rovereto, 21.03.2014 | COMMENT

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