Dynamic relationships between spontaneous and evoked electrophysiological activity

Commun Biol. 2021 Jun 15;4(1):741. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02240-9.

Abstract

Spontaneous neural activity fluctuations have been shown to influence trial-by-trial variation in perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes. However, the complex electrophysiological mechanisms by which these fluctuations shape stimulus-evoked neural activity remain largely to be explored. Employing a large-scale magnetoencephalographic dataset and an electroencephalographic replication dataset, we investigate the relationship between spontaneous and evoked neural activity across a range of electrophysiological variables. We observe that for high-frequency activity, high pre-stimulus amplitudes lead to greater evoked desynchronization, while for low frequencies, high pre-stimulus amplitudes induce larger degrees of event-related synchronization. We further decompose electrophysiological power into oscillatory and scale-free components, demonstrating different patterns of spontaneous-evoked correlation for each component. Finally, we find correlations between spontaneous and evoked time-domain electrophysiological signals. Overall, we demonstrate that the dynamics of multiple electrophysiological variables exhibit distinct relationships between their spontaneous and evoked activity, a result which carries implications for experimental design and analysis in non-invasive electrophysiology.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Brain Mapping / methods*
  • Brain Waves / physiology*
  • Consciousness / physiology
  • Electroencephalography
  • Electrophysiological Phenomena / physiology
  • Evoked Potentials / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Magnetoencephalography