Dynamic coupling of oscillatory neural activity and its roles in visual attention

Abstract

Oscillatory neural activity is believed to have a central role in information processing in the mammalian brain. While early studies often focussed on the function of individual frequency bands, there is emerging appreciation for the role of simultaneous activity in many distinct frequency bands and the interactions between them in high-level cognitive functions. Here, we focus on the role of cross-frequency coupling (CFC) in visual attention. First, we propose a framework that reconciles previous contrasting findings, showing how CFC could have a functional role on both intra- and interareal scales. Second, we outline how CFC between distinct frequency bands could label different submodalities of sensory information. Overall, our scheme provides a novel perspective of how interfrequency interaction contributes to efficient and dynamic processing of information across the brain.

Keywords: cross-frequency coupling (CFC); information transmission; neural oscillations; neural synchrony; phase amplitude coupling (PAC); visual attention.