Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Journal of Neurophysiology
Volume
130
Issue
2
First Page
458
Last Page
473
Publisher
American Physiological Society
School
School of Medical and Health Sciences
RAS ID
64574
Funders
Swiss National Science Foundation / National Research Foundation, Singapore
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.
DOI
10.1152/jn.00465.2022
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Potok, W., van der Groen, O., Sivachelvam, S., Bächinger, M., Fröhlich, F., Kish, L. B., & Wenderoth, N. (2023). Contrast detection is enhanced by deterministic, high-frequency transcranial alternating current stimulation with triangle and sine waveform. Journal of Neurophysiology, 130(2), 458-473. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00465.2022