1. Neuroscience

Phase-amplitude coupling supports phase coding in human ECoG

  1. Andrew J Watrous  Is a corresponding author
  2. Lorena Deuker
  3. Juergen Fell
  4. Nikolai Axmacher
  1. University of Bonn, Germany
  2. German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Germany
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07886
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  1. Andrew J Watrous
  2. Lorena Deuker
  3. Juergen Fell
  4. Nikolai Axmacher
(2015)
Phase-amplitude coupling supports phase coding in human ECoG
eLife 4:e07886.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07886
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Abstract

Prior studies have shown that high-frequency activity (HFA) is modulated by the phase of low-frequency activity. This phenomenon of phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) is often interpreted as reflecting phase coding of neural representations, although evidence for this link is still lacking in humans. Here, we show that PAC indeed supports phase-dependent stimulus representations for categories. Six patients with medication-resistant epilepsy viewed images of faces, tools, houses, and scenes during simultaneous acquisition of intracranial recordings. Analyzing 167 electrodes, we observed PAC at 43% of electrodes. Further inspection of PAC revealed that category specific HFA modulations occurred at different phases and frequencies of the underlying low-frequency rhythm, permitting decoding of categorical information using the phase at which HFA events occurred. These results provide evidence for categorical phase-coded neural representations and are the first to show that PAC coincides with phase-dependent coding in the human brain.

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Author details

  1. Andrew J Watrous

    Department of Epileptology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
    For correspondence
    ajw5xc@gmail.com
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  2. Lorena Deuker

    Department of Epileptology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Juergen Fell

    Department of Epileptology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Nikolai Axmacher

    German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Bonn, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Howard Eichenbaum, Boston University, United States

Ethics

Human subjects: The study was conducted according to the latest version of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the local ethics committee, and all patients provided written informed consent.

Version history

  1. Received: April 2, 2015
  2. Accepted: August 25, 2015
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: August 26, 2015 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: September 23, 2015 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2015, Watrous et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Andrew J Watrous
  2. Lorena Deuker
  3. Juergen Fell
  4. Nikolai Axmacher
(2015)
Phase-amplitude coupling supports phase coding in human ECoG
eLife 4:e07886.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07886

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07886

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Further reading

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    Phase-tuned neuronal firing encodes human contextual representations for navigational goals

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    We previously demonstrated that the phase of oscillations modulates neural activity representing categorical information using human intracranial recordings and high-frequency activity from local field potentials (Watrous et al., 2015b). We extend these findings here using human single-neuron recordings during a virtual navigation task. We identify neurons in the medial temporal lobe with firing-rate modulations for specific navigational goals, as well as for navigational planning and goal arrival. Going beyond this work, using a novel oscillation detection algorithm, we identify phase-locked neural firing that encodes information about a person’s prospective navigational goal in the absence of firing rate changes. These results provide evidence for navigational planning and contextual accounts of human MTL function at the single-neuron level. More generally, our findings identify phase-coded neuronal firing as a component of the human neural code.

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