From correlation to causation: The functional role of ongoing neuronal oscillations for perception

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Neuronal oscillations are a ubiquitous phenomenon in the brains of humans and other species. Despite their ubiquity, their role for perception and other cognitive functions is still not fully understood. Recent studies indicate that spontaneous, ongoing neuronal oscillations occurring even a few hundred milliseconds before a stimulus can substantially influence the perception of these stimuli. Moreover, some of these studies even have suggested that rather than being constant and continuous, our perception might be a discrete process. That is, similar to a video camera, our perception might work by producing discrete snapshots of our environment. The subjective impression of continuous perception is thus not more than an illusion. These studies suggest that neuronal oscillations at specific frequency bands might form the neuronal basis for these snapshots of perception. While this view on perception is intriguing and has gathered quite some support recently, evidence is still sparse. Most importantly, evidence for discrete perception and for a function role of neuronal oscillations for perception in general and discrete perception in particular has mostly been correlative. That is, causal evidence is still largely missing. In this proposal, we aim to study the causal relationship between ongoing neuronal oscillations and perception. We will use different methodological approaches such as tACS to modulate ongoing neuronal oscillations in healthy subjects. Simultaneously, we will measure the causal impact of these modulations on neuronal processing by MEG and on perception in behavioural tasks. These projects will provide an important step to further elucidate and establish the role of ongoing neuronal oscillations for neuronal processing, brain states, discrete perception and perception in general.