More than Meets the Mind’s Eye? Preliminary Observations Hint at Heterogeneous Alpha Neuromarkers for Visual Attention

Abstract

With their salient power distribution and privileged timescale for cognition and behavior, brainwaves within the 10 Hz band are special in human waking electroencephalography (EEG). From the inception of electroencephalographic technology, the contribution of alpha rhythm to attention is well-known: Its amplitude increases when visual attention wanes or visual input is removed. However, alpha is not alone in the 10 Hz frequency band. A number of other 10 Hz neuromarkers have function and topography clearly distinct from alpha. In small pilot studies, an activity that we named xi was found over left centroparietal scalp regions when subjects held their attention to spatially peripheral locations while maintaining their gaze centrally (“looking from the corner of the eyes”). I outline several potential functions for xi as a putative neuromarker of covert attention distinct from alpha. I review methodological aids to test and validate their functional role. They emphasize high spectral resolution, sufficient spatial resolution to provide topographical separation, and an acute attention to dynamics that caters to neuromarkers’ transiency.