Specific Neuronal Oscillatory Coupling over Frontal and Occipito-temporal Regions during Face Perception.

Abstract

Specific neuronal oscillatory activity had been considered as the underling mechanism for face processing. However, few studies focused on the neuronal oscillatory coupling between neuronal assembles during face perception. In this study, we investigated the neuronal oscillatory coupling when human was in a face/non-face perceptual task. Nine normal individuals were included in the study, electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded and the phase lagged index (PLI) was used to assess the neuronal oscillatory coupling. Compared with non-face stimuli, for face stimuli, enhanced neuronal oscillatory coupling was observed in theta (4-8 Hz) and alpha (8-12 Hz) band over the left frontal region, in gamma1 (30-49 Hz) band over the left posterior and occipito-temporal regions, and in gamma2 (51-75 Hz) over the right temporal region. The results suggested that more top-down control process and information integration were included during face perception than non-face perception.