TY - JOUR T1 - Large-scale cortical synchronization promotes multisensory processing: An EEG study of visual-tactile pattern matching JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/014423 SP - 014423 AU - Peng Wang AU - Florian Göschl AU - Uwe Friese AU - Peter König AU - Andreas K. Engel Y1 - 2015/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/01/27/014423.abstract N2 - The integration of sensory signals from different modalities requires flexible interaction of remote brain areas. One candidate mechanism to establish local and long-range communication in the brain is transient synchronization of neural assemblies. In addition to the analysis of oscillatory power, assessment of the phase dynamics of multiple brain signals is a promising avenue to examine the integration of distributed information in multisensory networks.In the current study, human participants were engaged in a visual-tactile pattern matching task while high-density electroencephalograms (EEG) were recorded. To investigate the neural correlates of multisensory integration and assess effects of crossmodal stimulus congruence, we adapted an approach for purely data-driven analysis of neuronal coupling in source space that has recently been developed within our group. This method allows imaging of large-scale cortical networks in space, time and frequency without defining a priori constraints.We identified three clusters of interacting sources that synchronized in the beta-band (∼ 20 Hz). The spatial and spectro-temporal profile of the first two clusters suggest an involvement in crossmodal sensory processing, whereas the third cluster appears to reflect decision-related processes. By directly relating coupling features to task performance, we demonstrate that the phase of neural coherence within the observed networks predicts behavior. Our results provide further evidence that neural synchronization is crucial for long-range communication in the brain and suggest a possible role of beta-band activity in multisensory integration.Significance Statement The natural environment is rich of information, which is sampled by the different sensory organs, and further perceived as light, sound, smell, taste and touch etc. Despite being processed by spatially distinct brain areas, rather than remaining isolated features, they ultimately form a unified, coherent percept. How this integration is organized on the cortical level remains poorly understood. In this study, we asked participants to detect pre-defined target patterns in visual-tactile stimulus combinations while high-density electroencephalograms were recorded. Without a priori assumptions, we identified several networks across remote brain areas, which are responsible for multisensory perception and sensorimotor integration. Synchronization within the observed networks occurred in the beta-band (∼ 20 Hz). Phase relations of these interactions predicted participants’ behavioral performance. ER -