Periodic visual stimulation induces resting-state brain network reconfiguration

Abstract

Periodic visual stimulation can evoke the steady-state visual potential (SSVEP) in the brain. Owing to its superior characteristics, the SSVEP has been widely used in neural engineering and cognitive neuroscience studies. However, the underlying mechanisms of the SSVEP are not well understood. In this study, we introduced a brain reconfiguration methodology to explore the possible mechanisms of the SSVEP. The EEG data from five periodic stimuli consistently indicated that the periodic visual stimulation could induce resting-state brain network reconfiguration and that the responses evoked by the stimuli were correlated to the network reconfiguration indexes. For each stimulus frequency, larger response amplitudes corresponded to higher reconfiguration indexes from the resting-state network to a stimulus-evoked network. These findings demonstrate that an external periodic visual stimulation can induce the modification of intrinsic oscillatory activities by reconfiguring resting-state activity at a network level, which could facilitate the responses evoked by the stimulus. These findings provide new insights into the response mechanisms of periodic visual stimulation.