TY - JOUR T1 - Spontaneous neural oscillations influence behavior and sensory representations by suppressing neuronal excitability JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2021.03.01.433450 SP - 2021.03.01.433450 AU - Luca Iemi AU - Laura Gwilliams AU - Jason Samaha AU - Ryszard Auksztulewicz AU - Yael M Cycowicz AU - Jean-Remi King AU - Vadim V Nikulin AU - Thomas Thesen AU - Werner Doyle AU - Orrin Devinsky AU - Charles E Schroeder AU - Lucia Melloni AU - Saskia Haegens Y1 - 2021/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/03/02/2021.03.01.433450.abstract N2 - The ability to process and respond to external input is critical for adaptive behavior. Why, then, do neural and behavioral responses vary across repeated presentations of the same sensory input? Spontaneous fluctuations of neuronal excitability are currently hypothesized to underlie the trial-by-trial variability in sensory processing. To test this, we capitalized on invasive electrophysiology in neurosurgical patients performing an auditory discrimination task with visual cues: specifically, we examined the interaction between prestimulus alpha oscillations, excitability, task performance, and decoded neural stimulus representations. We found that strong prestimulus oscillations in the alpha+ band (i.e., alpha and neighboring frequencies), rather than the aperiodic signal, correlated with a low excitability state, indexed by reduced broadband high-frequency activity. This state was related to slower reaction times and reduced neural stimulus encoding strength. We propose that the alpha+ rhythm modulates excitability, thereby resulting in variability in behavior and sensory representations despite identical input.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -