Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on September 1, 2004
Cerebral Cortex 2005 15(5):670-678; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhh170
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Cerebral Cortex V 15 N 5 © Oxford University Press 2004; all rights reserved
Larger Interregional Synchrony is Associated with Greater Behavioral Success in a Complex Sensory Integration Task in Humans
1 Cortical Physiology Research Group, Department of Neurology and Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, Eberhard-Karls University Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany and 2 Human Cortical Physiology Section, Medical Neurology Branch, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
Address correspondence to Christian Gerloff, Cortical Physiology Research Group, Department of Neurology and Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, Eberhard-Karls University Tübingen, Hoppe-Seyler-Str. 3, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. Email: christian.gerloff{at}uni-tuebingen.de.
Successful behavior depends on effective communication between distant brain regions. Moreover, disturbance of effective communication can cause neurological symptoms like apraxia, dyslexia or object agnosia. Interregional communication can be assessed by coherence analysis of synchronized neuronal oscillations, and has been referred to as synchrony or ‘binding’. The concept of synchrony as a means of information coding is attractive, but its functional relevance has been challenged. We hypothesized that if synchrony is functionally relevant in humans, then more synchrony should determine better behavioral performance. Here, we show in a visuotactile integration task that the amount of low-frequency (7–13Hz), long-range electroencephalographic coherence between visual and sensorimotor cortex is significantly correlated with the level of performance. Trials with highest coherences were the most successful ones and vice versa in the absence of differences in regional activation measured as task-related spectral power. In summary, quantitatively linking the amount of long-range synchrony with the degree of behavioral success in humans, the present data suggest that the ability to generate topographically specific synchrony of high amplitude is functionally relevant for behavioral success. They also raise the possibility that the magnitude of regional activation is less representative of the efficacy of brain functioning than interregional synchrony.
Key Words: coherence • EEG • humans • interregional synchrony • visuotactile
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