A New Unifying Account of the Roles of Neuronal Entrainment

Abstract

Rhythms are a fundamental and defining feature of neuronal activity in animals including humans. This rhythmic brain activity interacts in complex ways with rhythms in the internal and external environment through the phenomenon of 'neuronal entrainment', which is attracting increasing attention due to its suggested role in a multitude of sensory and cognitive processes. Some senses, such as touch and vision, sample the environment rhythmically, while others, like audition, are faced with mostly rhythmic inputs. Entrainment couples rhythmic brain activity to external and internal rhythmic events, serving fine-grained routing and modulation of external and internal signals across multiple spatial and temporal hierarchies. This interaction between a brain and its environment can be experimentally investigated and even modified by rhythmic sensory stimuli or invasive and non-invasive neuromodulation techniques. We provide a comprehensive overview of the topic and propose a theoretical framework of how neuronal entrainment dynamically structures information from incoming neuronal, bodily and environmental sources. We discuss the different types of neuronal entrainment, the conceptual advances in the field, and converging evidence for general principles.

Taxonomy of neural oscillation events in primate auditory cortex

“…As with the single-neuron firing-rate causal coding hypothesis, evidence for oscillation causal coding is inferential and hypothetical. The major hypotheses on the role of oscillations are entrainment theory [4][5][6] and communication through coherence theory [8,11] . Grossly, both of these theories consider the role of phase synchronization in gating communication channels across brain circuits.…”

“…Two related theories address the role of oscillations. Entrainment theory posits that attentional selection involves phase reset in response to relevant sensory or internal inputs; phase alignment provides optimal response to relevant time-varying signals [1,[4][5][6][7] . Similarly, communication through coherence posits that synchronization of oscillation phase across different brain circuits optimizes the ability of the networks to transmit and receive information [8] .…”

“…Intrinsic oscillations should be distinguished from stereotypical event related potential (ERP) waveforms, which may also be prolonged enough to produce a single cycle of oscillation. Delta (0.5-3 Hz), theta (4)(5)(6)(7)(8), beta (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30), gamma (30-100 Hz), and higher frequency oscillations have been shown to occur as multi-cycle events, with onset and offset dependent on behavioral and cognitive state [4,12] . A prominent example is the primate alpha rhythm (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14) Hz) observed in primary visual cortex [13] .…”

Irrelevant Predictions: Distractor Rhythmicity Modulates Neural Encoding in Auditory Cortex

“…(Sanders and Astheimer 2008;Chennu et al 2013;Deouell 2016, 2017;Mento 2017) or can be inferred from temporal regularities within the stimulus (Sohoglu and Chait 2016;ten Oever et al 2017;Auksztulewicz et al 2019). Mechanistically, these anticipatory effects may be attributed to entrainment of intrinsic oscillations so as to increase excitability at specific points in time (Schroeder and Lakatos 2009;Zoefel et al 2018;Lakatos et al 2019) or to the buildup of expectation through non-oscillatory mechanisms (e.g. the contingent negative variation ERP response; Pfeuty et al 2005;Breska and Deouell 2017;Novembre and Iannetti 2018).…”

Frequency selectivity of persistent cortical oscillatory responses to auditory rhythmic stimulation

“…It resulted in an empirical definition of delta (2-3.5 Hz), theta (4-7 Hz), alpha (8)(9)(10)(11), and gamma bands (50-110 Hz). Although not prominent neither in the sEEG dataset nor in the MEG dataset, we added a beta band (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22) Hz) based on existing literature. Indeed, previous works have shown coupling of the beta band power with the phase of the stimulus envelope at similar paces 31,92 .…”