Author response: Alterations in the amplitude and burst rate of beta oscillations impair reward-dependent motor learning in anxiety

Characterizing the middle-age neurophysiology using EEG/MEG

“…The copyright holder for this preprint (which this version posted June 6, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.04.447084 doi: bioRxiv preprint (Sporn et al, 2020). Future work should address whether the exacerbated presence of longer bursts at rest in our middle-aged participants is maintained during task performance, and whether it accounts for alterations in behavior and cognition relative to young and old participants.…”

“…A longer duration of beta bursts, however, is an indication of pathological beta rhythms, as shown in the basal ganglia and motor cortex of Parkinson's disease patients (Lofredi et al, 2019;Tinkhauser, 2017). The occasional presence of longer bursts can also disrupt performance in healthy adults, when occurring before behaviorally relevant cues (Little et al, 2019;Jones, 2016) or during feedback processing (Sporn et al, 2020). Future work should address whether the exacerbated presence of longer bursts at rest in our middle-aged participants is maintained during task performance, and whether it accounts for alterations in behavior and cognition relative to young and old participants.…”

“…After detecting bursts with either method, we computed the slope of the distribution of burst rate against burst duration (Poil et al, 2008;Sporn et al, 2020) and assessed its modulation across the lifespan. In brief, a linear model was fitted to the distribution of burst rate per duration in log-log scales, separately for each channel and oscillation frequency band.…”

“…We applied bandpass filters separately at 10-12 Hz and 13-30 Hz in the alpha and beta bands, respectively, in line with the relevant frequency ranges identified by the cluster-based permutation test conducted in young and older participants (See 2.1.7). Following past research (Sporn et al, 2020;Tinkhauser et al, 2017), we calculated the amplitude envelope of the oscillation of interest (beta or alpha range) using the Hilbert transform. We then used the 75% percentile of the amplitude envelope of the given oscillation band as threshold.…”

“…In the case of beta bursts, their distribution is maximal in premotor-motor and basal ganglia areas (Feingold et al 2015;Little et al, 2019). Neurological or psychiatric conditions can modulate spectral power and burst properties (Tinkhauser et al, 2017;Torrecillos et al, 2015;Sporn et al, 2020), yet it remains unclear whether healthy lifespan changes in neuronal oscillations also alter burst properties.…”