Distinct and complementary mechanisms of oscillatory and aperiodic alpha activity in visuospatial attention.

ABSTRACT: Alpha oscillations are thought to play a key role in visuospatial attention, particularly through lateralisation mechanisms. However, whether this function is driven purely by oscillatory activity or also involves aperiodic neural components remains unclear, making it difficult to develop precise theoretical models of alpha function and attention. Using EEG and concurrent transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)-EEG, this study aimed to (1) disentangle the contributions of oscillatory and aperiodic alpha activity to visuospatial attention and (2) examine their causal roles by differentially modulating aperiodic and oscillatory components. First, across four independent EEG datasets, we found that both aperiodic and oscillatory alpha activity contribute to spatial attention encoding and univ

SUBMITTER: Lu R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12670039 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature