Spontaneous slow cortical potentials and brain oscillations independently influence conscious visual perception.

Abstract

Perceptual awareness results from an intricate interaction between external sensory input and the brain's spontaneous activity. Pre-stimulus ongoing activity influencing conscious perception includes both brain oscillations in the alpha (7 to 14 Hz) and beta (14 to 30 Hz) frequency ranges and aperiodic activity in the slow cortical potential (SCP, <5 Hz) range. However, whether brain oscillations and SCPs independently influence conscious perception or do so through shared mechanisms remains unknown. Here, we addressed this question in 2 independent magnetoencephalography (MEG) data sets involving near-threshold visual perception tasks in humans using low-level (Gabor patches) and high-level (objects, faces, houses, animals) stimuli, respectively. We found that oscillatory power and large-scale SCP activity influence conscious perception through independent mechanisms that do not have shared variance. In addition, through mediation analysis, we show that pre-stimulus oscillatory power and SCP activity have different relations to pupil size-an index of arousal-in their influences on conscious perception. Together, these findings suggest that oscillatory power and SCPs independently contribute to perceptual awareness, with distinct relations to pupil-linked arousal.