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Magliacano A, Catalano L, Sagliano L, Estraneo A, Trojano L. Spontaneous eye blinking during an auditory, an interoceptive and a visual task: The role of the sensory modality and the attentional focus. Cortex 2023; 168:49-61. [PMID: 37659289 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.07.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2023] [Revised: 07/15/2023] [Accepted: 07/31/2023] [Indexed: 09/04/2023]
Abstract
Previous evidence suggested that spontaneous eye blinking changes as a function of the attentional focus. In particular, eye blink rate (EBR) tends to increase when attention is directed to internal versus environmental processing. Most studies on this issue compared eye blinking during visual and mental imagery tasks, and interpreted the increase in EBR as a mechanism to focus cognitive resources on internal processing by disengaging attention from interfering information. However, since eye blinking also depends on the sensory modality of the task, the findings might be influenced by a modality-specific effect. In the present Registered Report we aim at investigating whether the environmental versus internal attentional focus can affect spontaneous blinking behaviour in non-visual tasks as well, in conditions where visual stimuli are not relevant. In a within-subject design, healthy participants performed an interoceptive task (i.e., heartbeat counting) and an auditory task in which pre-recorded heartbeats were presented aurally; during both tasks irrelevant visual stimuli were also presented. In a further control condition with the same auditory and visual stimuli, the participants were required to focus their attention on visual stimuli. Participants' EBR was recorded during each task by means of an eye-tracking system. We found that, although the interoceptive task was more difficult than the auditory and visual tasks, participants' EBR decreased by a comparable level in all tasks with respect to a rest condition, with no differences between internal versus environmental conditions. The present findings do not support the idea that EBR is modulated by an internal versus external focus of attention, at least in presence of controlled visual stimulation.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Laura Catalano
- Department of Psychology, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Caserta, Italy
| | - Laura Sagliano
- Department of Psychology, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Caserta, Italy
| | | | - Luigi Trojano
- Department of Psychology, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Caserta, Italy.
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Potok W, van der Groen O, Sivachelvam S, Bächinger M, Fröhlich F, Kish LB, Wenderoth N. Contrast detection is enhanced by deterministic, high-frequency transcranial alternating current stimulation with triangle and sine waveform. J Neurophysiol 2023; 130:458-473. [PMID: 37465880 PMCID: PMC10625838 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00465.2022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2022] [Revised: 07/05/2023] [Accepted: 07/14/2023] [Indexed: 07/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Stochastic resonance (SR) describes a phenomenon where an additive noise (stochastic carrier-wave) enhances the signal transmission in a nonlinear system. In the nervous system, nonlinear properties are present from the level of single ion channels all the way to perception and appear to support the emergence of SR. For example, SR has been repeatedly demonstrated for visual detection tasks, also by adding noise directly to cortical areas via transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS). When dealing with nonlinear physical systems, it has been suggested that resonance can be induced not only by adding stochastic signals (i.e., noise) but also by adding a large class of signals that are not stochastic in nature that cause "deterministic amplitude resonance" (DAR). Here, we mathematically show that high-frequency, deterministic, periodic signals can yield resonance-like effects with linear transfer and infinite signal-to-noise ratio at the output. We tested this prediction empirically and investigated whether nonrandom, high-frequency, transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) applied to the visual cortex could induce resonance-like effects and enhance the performance of a visual detection task. We demonstrated in 28 participants that applying 80-Hz triangular-waves or sine-waves with tACS reduced the visual contrast detection threshold for optimal brain stimulation intensities. The influence of tACS on contrast sensitivity was equally effective to tRNS-induced modulation, demonstrating that both tACS and tRNS can reduce contrast detection thresholds. Our findings suggest that a resonance-like mechanism can also emerge when deterministic electrical waveforms are applied via tACS.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Our findings extend our understanding of neuromodulation induced by noninvasive electrical stimulation. We provide the first evidence showing acute online benefits of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS)triangle and tACSsine targeting the primary visual cortex (V1) on visual contrast detection in accordance with the resonance-like phenomenon. The "deterministic" tACS and "stochastic" high-frequency-transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) are equally effective in enhancing visual contrast detection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Weronika Potok
- Neural Control of Movement Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Neuroscience Center Zurich (ZNZ), Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, University and Balgrist Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Onno van der Groen
- Neurorehabilitation and Robotics Laboratory, School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Western Australia, Australia
| | - Sahana Sivachelvam
- Neural Control of Movement Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Marc Bächinger
- Neural Control of Movement Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Neuroscience Center Zurich (ZNZ), Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, University and Balgrist Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Flavio Fröhlich
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
- Carolina Center for Neurostimulation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
- Department of Neurology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
- Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
- Neuroscience Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
| | - Laszlo B Kish
- Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States
| | - Nicole Wenderoth
- Neural Control of Movement Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Neuroscience Center Zurich (ZNZ), Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, University and Balgrist Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Future Health Technologies, Singapore-ETH Centre, Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE), Singapore
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Keitel C, Ruzzoli M, Dugué L, Busch NA, Benwell CSY. Rhythms in cognition: The evidence revisited. Eur J Neurosci 2022; 55:2991-3009. [PMID: 35696729 PMCID: PMC9544967 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15740] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2022] [Revised: 05/27/2022] [Accepted: 05/30/2022] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Manuela Ruzzoli
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), Donostia/San Sebastian, Spain.,Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain
| | - Laura Dugué
- Université Paris Cité, INCC UMR 8002, CNRS, Paris, France.,Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), Paris, France
| | - Niko A Busch
- Institute for Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
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