PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Bingbing Guo
AU  - Zhengang Lu
AU  - Jessica E. Goold
AU  - Huan Luo
AU  - Ming Meng
TI  - Fluctuations of fMRI activation patterns reveal theta-band dynamics of visual object priming
AID  - 10.1101/148635
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 148635
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/12/148635.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/12/148635.full
AB  - The brain dynamically creates predictions about upcoming stimuli to guide perception efficiently. Recent behavioral results suggest theta-band oscillations contribute to this prediction process, however litter is known about the underlying neural mechanism. Here, we combine fMRI and a time-resolved psychophysical paradigm to access fine temporal-scale profiles of the fluctuations of brain activation patterns corresponding to visual object priming. Specifically, multi-voxel activity patterns in the fusiform face area (FFA) and the parahippocampal place area (PPA) show temporal fluctuations at a theta-band (~5 Hz) rhythm. Importantly, the theta-band power in the FFA negatively correlates with reaction time, further indicating the critical role of the observed cortical theta oscillations. Moreover, alpha-band (~10 Hz) shows a dissociated spatial distribution, mainly linked to the occipital cortex. These findings, to our knowledge, are the first fMRI study that indicates temporal fluctuations of multi-voxel activity patterns and that demonstrates theta and alpha rhythms in relevant brain areas.