Given the limited processing capabilities of the sensory system, it is essential that attended information is gated to downstream areas, whereas unattended information is blocked. While it has been proposed that alpha band (8–13 Hz) activity serves to route information to downstream regions by inhibiting neuronal processing in task-irrelevant regions, this hypothesis remains untested. Here we investigate how neuronal oscillations detected by electroencephalography in visual areas during working memory encoding serve to gate information reflected in the simultaneously recorded blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) signals recorded by functional magnetic resonance imaging in downstream ventral regions. We used a paradigm in which 16 participants were presented with faces and landscapes in the right and left hemifields; one hemifield was attended and the other unattended. We observed that decreased alpha power contralateral to the attended object predicted the BOLD signal representing the attended object in ventral object-selective regions. Furthermore, increased alpha power ipsilateral to the attended object predicted a decrease in the BOLD signal representing the unattended object. We also found that the BOLD signal in the dorsal attention network inversely correlated with visual alpha power. This is the first demonstration, to our knowledge, that oscillations in the alpha band are implicated in the gating of information from the visual cortex to the ventral stream, as reflected in the representationally specific BOLD signal. This link of sensory alpha to downstream activity provides a neurophysiological substrate for the mechanism of selective attention during stimulus processing, which not only boosts the attended information but also suppresses distraction. Although previous studies have shown a relation between the BOLD signal from the dorsal attention network and the alpha band at rest, we demonstrate such a relation during a visuospatial task, indicating that the dorsal attention network exercises top-down control of visual alpha activity.
eeg_subject01
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f01.mat
eeg_subject02
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f02.mat
eeg_subject03
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f03.mat
eeg_subject04
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f04.mat
eeg_subject05
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f05.mat
eeg_subject06
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f06.mat
eeg_subject07
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f07.mat
eeg_subject08
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f08.mat
eeg_subject09
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f09.mat
eeg_subject10
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f10.mat
eeg_subject11
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f11.mat
eeg_subject12
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f12.mat
eeg_subject13
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f13.mat
eeg_subject14
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f14.mat
eeg_subject15
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f15.mat
eeg_subject16
EEG data from inside the MRI.
raw_resamp_notrej_f16.mat
behav_electrodepos
Files for all subjects for EEG electrode positions, output from Presentation scripts, and eye-tracker information.
mri_f01
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f02
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f03
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f04
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f05
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f06
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f07
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f08
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f09
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f10
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f11
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f12
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f13
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f14
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f15
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).
mri_f16
All MRI data for each participant separately. (Structural, functional main task, and functional localizer task).