Intrinsic neural timescales: temporal integration and segregation

Wolff, Annemarie; Berberian, Nareg; Golesorkhi, Mehrshad; Gómez‐Pilar, Javier; Zilio, Federico; Northoff, Georg

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2021.11.007

Cited by 138 publications

(124 citation statements)

References 99 publications

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“…Recent studies provide a possible answer to the role of intrinsic neural timescales in inferring future inputs; with an empirical prior and prediction error, based on the temporo-spatial carry-over and continuation of ongoing activity within the post-stimulus interval, the task states during which the respective content is consciously experienced [ 39 , 40 ]. In this regard, the prediction error is the difference between the ongoing (from pre-stimulus to stimulus period) relevant timescale in the primary sensory area (e.g., a short timescale) to the related timescale of the input at a discrete point in time (e.g., a musical note).…”

Section: From Pre-stimulus To Stimulus-induced Activity—conscious Vs ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The timescales of the input at its discrete point in time are integrated within the ongoing timescales of the respective sensory region, such as the auditory cortex in this case. This is additionally modulated by the longer timescales of higher-order associative regions that provide top-down predictions to lower-order areas, while receiving prediction error signals from lower-order areas (i.e., the difference in timescales between the input and sensory area) [ 40 ]. Thus, post-stimulus activity is not only relevant to the temporal modeling of the input but also provides by itself a temporal extension of the input by the longer timescales of the higher-order regions through their top-down modulation and prediction.…”

Section: From Pre-stimulus To Stimulus-induced Activity—conscious Vs ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, and third, there is the integration of phenomenal contents with the ongoing consciousness itself in a time range greater than 3 s, i.e., the stream of consciousness. Following James’ account of consciousness, who distinguishes the very contents of the experience (the ‘substantive parts’) from the transitional periods that provide the temporal link between the contents (the ‘transitive parts’) [ 15 , 33 , 35 ], the stream of consciousness is conceived here neither as additional content of consciousness nor simply as the frame-by-frame sequence of short-duration contents [ 26 , 27 , 36 ] but rather as activity that gives duration, continuity, coherence, and unity of the experience [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ]. In this regard, it can be assumed that various timescales of integration in turn integrate and select extended chunks of experience into even longer units of experiences, in which functions such as working memory, attention, and autobiographical self support a balance between continuity of experience and change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The entire temporal range from a few milliseconds to 100 s is methodologically explorable by estimating the duration and characteristics of the intrinsic neural timescales (with fMRI, e.g., 0.01–0.1 Hz and EEG, e.g., 0.5–100 Hz). Recently, dynamical measurements such as the Power-law Exponent and Autocorrelation Window, which can span shorter and longer timescale intervals (even up to 100 s), have shown a repertoire of scale-free dynamics associated with various features of consciousness, e.g., wakefulness, self-consciousness, perception, input integration, and segregation [ 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ]. The stream of consciousness could therefore not be linked to a specific duration but could extend over different and overlapping timescales, depending on the experiential context and the different features of consciousness involved, rather than bound only to the onset of a paradigmatic stimulus or content of consciousness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From Shorter to Longer Timescales: Converging Integrated Information Theory (IIT) with the Temporo-Spatial Theory of Consciousness (TTC)

Northoff

Zilio

2022

Entropy

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Time is a key element of consciousness as it includes multiple timescales from shorter to longer ones. This is reflected in our experience of various short-term phenomenal contents at discrete points in time as part of an ongoing, more continuous, and long-term ‘stream of consciousness.’ Can Integrated Information Theory (IIT) account for this multitude of timescales of consciousness? According to the theory, the relevant spatiotemporal scale for consciousness is the one in which the system reaches the maximum cause-effect power; IIT currently predicts that experience occurs on the order of short timescales, namely, between 100 and 300 ms (theta and alpha frequency range). This can well account for the integration of single inputs into a particular phenomenal content. However, such short timescales leave open the temporal relation of specific phenomenal contents to others during the course of the ongoing time, that is, the stream of consciousness. For that purpose, we converge the IIT with the Temporo-spatial Theory of Consciousness (TTC), which, assuming a multitude of different timescales, can take into view the temporal integration of specific phenomenal contents with other phenomenal contents over time. On the neuronal side, this is detailed by considering those neuronal mechanisms driving the non-additive interaction of pre-stimulus activity with the input resulting in stimulus-related activity. Due to their non-additive interaction, the single input is not only integrated with others in the short-term timescales of 100–300 ms (alpha and theta frequencies) (as predicted by IIT) but, at the same time, also virtually expanded in its temporal (and spatial) features; this is related to the longer timescales (delta and slower frequencies) that are carried over from pre-stimulus to stimulus-related activity. Such a non-additive pre-stimulus-input interaction amounts to temporo-spatial expansion as a key mechanism of TTC for the constitution of phenomenal contents including their embedding or nesting within the ongoing temporal dynamic, i.e., the stream of consciousness. In conclusion, we propose converging the short-term integration of inputs postulated in IIT (100–300 ms as in the alpha and theta frequency range) with the longer timescales (in delta and slower frequencies) of temporo-spatial expansion in TTC.

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Section: From Pre-stimulus To Stimulus-induced Activity—conscious Vs ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: From Pre-stimulus To Stimulus-induced Activity—conscious Vs ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

From Shorter to Longer Timescales: Converging Integrated Information Theory (IIT) with the Temporo-Spatial Theory of Consciousness (TTC)

Northoff

Zilio

2022

Entropy

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“…2020 ): in part, self may be realized in virtue of intrinsic neural integration between higher and lower frequencies ( Wolff et al. 2019 ; Wolff et al. 2022 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intrinsic neural activity predisposes susceptibility to a body illusion

Hsu

Zhou

Yeh

et al. 2022

Cerebral Cortex Communications

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Susceptibility to the rubber hand illusion (RHI) varies. To date, however, there is no consensus explanation of this variability. Previous studies, focused on the role of multisensory integration, have searched for neural correlates of the illusion. But those studies have failed to identify a sufficient set of functionally specific neural correlates. Because some evidence suggests that frontal α power is one means of tracking neural instantiations of self, we hypothesized that the higher the frontal α power during eyes-closed resting state, the more stable the self. As a corollary, we infer that the more stable the self, the less susceptible are participants to a blurring of boundaries—to feeling that the rubber hand belongs to them. Indeed, we found that frontal α amplitude oscillations negatively correlate with susceptibility. Moreover, since lower frequencies often modulate higher frequencies, we explored the possibility that this might be the case for the RHI. Indeed, some evidence suggests that high frontal α power observed in low-RHI participants is modulated by δ frequency oscillations. We conclude that while neural correlates of multisensory integration might be necessary for the RHI, sufficient explanation involves variable intrinsic neural activity that modulates how the brain responds to incompatible sensory stimuli.

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Viscous dynamics associated with hypoexcitation and structural disintegration in neurodegeneration via generative whole‐brain modeling

Coronel‐Oliveros,

Gómez,

Ranasinghe

et al. 2024

Alzheimer's & Dementia

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INTRODUCTIONAlzheimer's disease (AD) and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) lack mechanistic biophysical modeling in diverse, underrepresented populations. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a high temporal resolution, cost‐effective technique for studying dementia globally, but lacks mechanistic models and produces non‐replicable results.METHODSWe developed a generative whole‐brain model that combines EEG source‐level metaconnectivity, anatomical priors, and a perturbational approach. This model was applied to Global South participants (AD, bvFTD, and healthy controls).RESULTSMetaconnectivity outperformed pairwise connectivity and revealed more viscous dynamics in patients, with altered metaconnectivity patterns associated with multimodal disease presentation. The biophysical model showed that connectome disintegration and hypoexcitability triggered altered metaconnectivity dynamics and identified critical regions for brain stimulation. We replicated the main results in a second subset of participants for validation with unharmonized, heterogeneous recording settings.DISCUSSIONThe results provide a novel agenda for developing mechanistic model‐inspired characterization and therapies in clinical, translational, and computational neuroscience settings.

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Intrinsic neural timescales: temporal integration and segregation

Cited by 138 publications

References 99 publications

From Shorter to Longer Timescales: Converging Integrated Information Theory (IIT) with the Temporo-Spatial Theory of Consciousness (TTC)

From Shorter to Longer Timescales: Converging Integrated Information Theory (IIT) with the Temporo-Spatial Theory of Consciousness (TTC)

Intrinsic neural activity predisposes susceptibility to a body illusion

Viscous dynamics associated with hypoexcitation and structural disintegration in neurodegeneration via generative whole‐brain modeling

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