Visuotactile motion congruence enhances gamma-band activity in visual and somatosensory cortices

On the neural basis of sensory weighting: Alpha, beta and gamma modulations during complex movements

“…The sensory binding hypothesis is supported by studies showing that gamma power increases within the sensory cortices when a coherent percept emerges from different sensory inputs; but, decreases with the presentation of incongruent sensory inputs Krebber et al, 2015;Lutzenberger et al, 1995;Maier et al, 2008;Muller et al, 1996Muller et al, , 1997. Based on these findings, gamma activity was proposed as a neural marker for multimodal sensory integration, connecting neural assemblies that encode stimuli of different sensory modalities (Engel et al, 2012;Fries, 2009;Wang, 2010).…”

“…For instance, gamma response in the occipital cortex is observed following the presentation of two coherent visual stimuli (Tallon-Baudry et al, 1996;Zarka et al, 2014). This response is absent when a visual stimulus is presented simultaneously with incongruent visual (TallonBaudry et al, 1996;Zarka et al, 2014) or non-visual stimuli Krebber et al, 2015;Maier et al, 2008). In the case of incongruent visuo-tactile stimulation, this decrease of gamma power is not only observed over the visual cortex but is also found centrally, over the somatosensory cortex (Krebber et al, 2015).…”

“…Gamma power is therefore frequently reported as being negatively correlated with the alpha and beta power (Pfurtscheller et al, 2003, Tallon-Baudry andBertrand, 1999). Contributing to a higher level of sensory information processing, gamma oscillations are considered as neural markers of unimodal and multimodal sensory binding (Engel et al, 2012;Ghazanfar et al, 2008;Krebber et al, 2015;Maier et al, 2008;Wang, 2010). For instance, gamma response in the occipital cortex is observed following the presentation of two coherent visual stimuli (Tallon-Baudry et al, 1996;Zarka et al, 2014).…”

“…This response is absent when a visual stimulus is presented simultaneously with incongruent visual (TallonBaudry et al, 1996;Zarka et al, 2014) or non-visual stimuli Krebber et al, 2015;Maier et al, 2008). In the case of incongruent visuo-tactile stimulation, this decrease of gamma power is not only observed over the visual cortex but is also found centrally, over the somatosensory cortex (Krebber et al, 2015). These latter findings are also consistent with the suggestion that gamma oscillations serve to connect neural populations that encode stimuli of different sensory modalities (Fries, 2009;Wang, 2010).…”

“…However, two important points emerge from the literature that currently precludes drawing firm conclusions regarding these mechanisms. First, current assumptions on the link between neural oscillations and sensory re-weighting primarily derive from studies in which the sensory inputs were task-irrelevant (e.g., Krebber et al, 2015) or relevant for non-motor processes (e.g., visual, tactile or pain perception, see Tallon-Baudry et al, 1996;Bauer et al, 2006). Second, in studies targeting sensorimotor processes, neural oscillations were principally assessed either during the planning phase of the movements or during discrete motor actions of short duration (e.g., < 1 s; Chung et al, 2017;Thürer et al, 2016;Torrecillos et al, 2015).…”