Can Occipital Alpha Neurofeedback Influence LTRCs and Deterministic ERPs without Critical Branching?

TL;DR

This study investigates whether occipital alpha neurofeedback can modulate long-range temporal correlations and event-related potentials independently of critical branching, proposing a new mathematical model for these effects.

Contribution

It introduces an alternative mathematical framework showing neurofeedback influences deterministic ERPs and alpha gain separately, challenging the critical branching hypothesis.

Findings

Neurofeedback affects power-scaling of temporal correlations.

Deterministic ERPs are influenced independently of alpha gain.

Critical branching is not necessary for observed neurofeedback effects.

Abstract

Critical branching is a theoretical interaction in-between simple units, such as neuronal elements of the human brain. Zhigalov, Kaplan, and Palva (2016, Clin. Neurophysiol., 127(8), 2882-2889) revealed that neurofeedback flash stimulation locked to the phase of high-amplitude occipital alpha influences stimulus-locked occipital averages in the alpha-band. This feedback also influences the power scaling of long-range temporal correlations in alpha-band amplitude fluctuations. Seemingly, neurofeedback influences critical branching alongside there being an interaction between ongoing neuronal activity and evoked responses. However, the causal relations between these neuronal long-range temporal correlations, sustained attention, and any avalanche dynamics are called into question. Further, uncorrected concerns include false discovery rate and an objective mathematical error in the precedent (Palva et al., 2013, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 110(9), 3585-3590). An alternative set of illustrative mathematical principles offers a preliminary fit to the effects in the data. That is, neurofeedback influences the deterministic contribution to the single-trial event-related potentials, which each flash evokes, separately from the oscillatory alpha gain that those flashes cause. Accordingly, distinct principles of this neurofeedback-related exponential occipital oscillatory alpha gain and deterministic event-related potential generation produce micro-behaviours with macroscale consequences: neurofeedback causally influences power-scaling of long-range temporal correlations without critical branching.