Development of the Alpha Rhythm Is Linked to Visual White Matter Pathways and Visual Detection Performance

Overview

Journal J Neurosci

Specialty Neurology

Date 2023 Dec 20

PMID 38124006

Authors

Sendy Caffarra

Klint Kanopka

John Kruper

Adam Richie-Halford

Ethan Roy

Ariel Rokem

Jason D Yeatman

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Alpha is the strongest electrophysiological rhythm in awake humans at rest. Despite its predominance in the EEG signal, large variations can be observed in alpha properties during development, with an increase in alpha frequency over childhood and adulthood. Here, we tested the hypothesis that these changes in alpha rhythm are related to the maturation of visual white matter pathways. We capitalized on a large diffusion MRI (dMRI)-EEG dataset (dMRI = 2,747, EEG = 2,561) of children and adolescents of either sex (age range, 5-21 years old) and showed that maturation of the optic radiation specifically accounts for developmental changes of alpha frequency. Behavioral analyses also confirmed that variations of alpha frequency are related to maturational changes in visual perception. The present findings demonstrate the close link between developmental variations in white matter tissue properties, electrophysiological responses, and behavior.

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