PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jonathan Daume
AU  - Peng Wang
AU  - Alexander Maye
AU  - Dan Zhang
AU  - Andreas K. Engel
TI  - Delta phase resets mediate non-rhythmic temporal prediction
AID  - 10.1101/643957
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 643957
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/01/19/643957.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/01/19/643957.full
AB  - The phase of neural oscillatory activity aligns to the predicted onset of upcoming stimulation. Whether such phase alignments represent phase resets of underlying neural oscillations or just rhythmically evoked activity, and whether they can be observed in a rhythm-free visual context, however, remains unclear. Here, we recorded the magnetoencephalogram while participants were engaged in a temporal prediction task judging the visual or tactile reappearance of a uniformly moving stimulus. The prediction conditions were contrasted with a control condition to dissociate phase adjustments of neural oscillations from stimulus-driven activity. We observed stronger delta band inter-trial phase consistency (ITPC) in a network of sensory, parietal and frontal brain areas, but no power increase reflecting stimulus-driven or prediction-related processes. Delta ITPC further correlated with prediction performance in the cerebellum and visual cortex. Our results provide evidence that phase alignments of low-frequency neural oscillations underlie temporal predictions in a non-rhythmic visual and crossmodal context.