Frontal gamma-band enhancement during multistable visual perception

Abstract

The aim of our study was to find out whether an increase in the gamma band may be related to the reversal phase during viewing of an ambiguous pattern. The present study describes the significant gamma band (30-50 Hz) activity increase in EEG during states of perceptual switching (reversal state). In our experiments the multistability was induced with an ambiguous stimulus pattern, known as stroboscopic alternative motion (SAM). The investigations carried out in 11 subjects included a measuring strategy with three different experimental conditions: (1) recording of spontaneous EEG as baseline; (2) recording of the EEG during naive observation of the ambiguous pattern; (3) recording of EEG during active observation of SAM. The results indicate that the multistable perception is one of the multifold cognitive processes giving rise to 40 Hz enhancement in the entire cortex. The most significant 40 Hz enhancements were measured in frontal areas and can reach increases of 40 to 50% in states of naive and active observations of SAM, respectively, in comparison to spontaneous EEG recordings. The results indicate that the increase of frontal gamma band is related to the destabilization of the perceptual system when viewing multistable patterns.