Project: Transcranial brain stimulation investigations on the role of oscillatory phase in neuronal processing Summary: Recently there has been surge in the interest on slow
neuronal oscillations (delta, theta and alpha activity)
in both animals and humans. While these oscillations often correlate
with behaviour, it is unknown to what extent they play
a causal role for neuronal processing. The aim of this proposal is to
gain insight into the mechanist role of slow oscillations
by using transcranial stimulation in humans in order to induce and
perturb neuronal oscillations. This will be done in the
context of a set of experiments where we combine
electroencephalography (EEG) with transcranial magnetic stimulation
(TMS)
or transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS). Our first aim
is to determine the conditions for when oscillatory
activity induced by transcranial stimulation can be considered similar
to naturally occurring neuronal oscillations. The
second aim is to demonstrate that neuronal oscillations play a causal
role for routing of information between brain
networks. Finally, a recent theoretical framework published by our
group predicts that different information is encoded at
different phases of the oscillatory cycles (‘phase coding’). We will
test this hypothesis by perturbing perception in a
phase-dependent manner. We expect our studies to provide novel insight
into the causal role of slow oscillations. This
insight is important for understanding how neuronal processing is
timed and the routing between regions. Further, this
insight can potentially be used to augment human performance by
controlling brain states using transcranial stimulation.
