MEG Alpha-Band Oscillations During Covert Visual Attention Tasks

Featuring magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings from subjects performing a visual discrimination task that dissociates attention direction from saccade direction. The data was collected to test how posterior alpha power tracks the locus and distribution of covert attention. The author is Akiko Ikkai, and the data was last updated in June 2020.

Use Cases

• Analyze the relationship between alpha power in occipital sensors and the locus of covert attention indicated by task cues.
• Compare alpha power topography in frontal and occipital sensors between trials with predictive and non-predictive spatial cues.
• Investigate the bilateral versus contralateral changes in alpha power in occipital cortex relative to the attended visual field.
• Model how alpha synchronization patterns reflect the excitability of neuron populations matching the attention locus.

Strengths

• Data is from a controlled experiment dissociating attention direction from saccade direction.
• Includes recordings from magnetoencephalography (MEG), a direct neural measurement technique.
• Released under a permissive CC0 1.0 public domain license.
• Focuses on the analytically specific alpha frequency band (8–13Hz).

Limitations

• Sample size (number of subjects or recording sessions) is not specified.
• The specific file formats, data size, and structure (e.g., rows, columns) are unknown.
• As a neurophysiology dataset, it requires specialized tools and expertise for analysis.

Provenance

Source

Dryad digital repository.

Collection Method

Magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings during a visual discrimination task.

Freshness

Last updated in June 2020.