Traveling Waves in the Human Visual Cortex: an MEG-EEG Model-Based Approach
Authors: Grabot Laetitia , Merholz Garance , Winawer Jonathan , Heeger David J. , Dugué Laura 
Published: October 2024

Brain oscillations might be traveling waves propagating in cortex. Studying their propagation within single cortical areas has mostly been restricted to invasive measurements. Their investigation in healthy humans, however, requires non-invasive recordings, such as MEG or EEG. Identifying traveling waves with these techniques is challenging because source summation, volume conduction, and low signal-to-noise ratios make it difficult to localize cortical activity from sensor responses. The difficulty is compounded by the lack of a known ground truth in traveling wave experiments. Rather than source-localizing cortical responses from sensor activity, we developed a two-part model-based neuroimaging approach: (1) The putative neural sources of a propagating oscillation were modeled within primary visual cortex (V1) via retinotopic mapping from functional MRI recordings (encoding model); and (2) the modeled sources were projected onto MEG and EEG sensors to predict the resulting signal using a biophysical head model. We tested our model by comparing its predictions against the MEG-EEG signal obtained when participants viewed visual stimuli designed to elicit either fovea-to-periphery or periphery-to-fovea traveling waves or standing waves in V1, in which ground truth cortical waves could be reasonably assumed. Correlations on within-sensor phase and amplitude relations between predicted and measured data revealed good model performance. Crucially, the model predicted sensor data more accurately when the input to the model was a traveling wave going in the stimulus direction compared to when the input was a standing wave, or a traveling wave in a different direction. Furthermore, model accuracy peaked at the spatial and temporal frequency parameters of the visual stimulation. Together, our model successfully recovers traveling wave properties in cortex when they are induced by traveling waves in stimuli. This provides a sound basis for using MEG-EEG to study endogenous traveling waves in cortex and test hypotheses related with their role in cognition.

Author Summary

Brain oscillations, thought to be crucial for many cognitive processes, might actually be waves that travel across the brain’s surface. Understanding these traveling waves is notoriously difficult because current non-invasive methods like magneto- and electro-encephalography (MEG-EEG) face significant technical limitations. To address this challenge, we developed a new approach that combines brain imaging techniques and computational modeling. We focused on the primary visual cortical area (V1) of the brain and created a model that simulates traveling activity across the cortex and predicts how these traveling waves should appear in EEG and MEG recordings. We tested our model by comparing its predictions with brain data collected when participants view visual patterns specifically designed to induce traveling waves in the visual system. The results show that our model accurately captures the direction and pattern of the traveling waves, as well as the specific parameters of the visual stimuli. This novel modeling tool offers a promising method for studying endogenous traveling waves and will enable neuroscientists to explore hypotheses about the spatiotemporal organization of brain activity and its role in cognition.