Data from: Deactivation in the posterior mid-cingulate cortex reflects perceptual transitions during binocular rivalry: evidence from simultaneous EEG-fMRI

Binocular rivalry is a phenomenon in which perception spontaneously shifts
between two different images that are dichoptically presented to the
viewer. By elucidating the cortical networks responsible for these
stochastic fluctuations in perception, we can potentially learn much about
the neural correlates of visual awareness. We obtained concurrent EEG-fMRI
data for a group of 20 healthy human subjects during the continuous
presentation of dichoptic visual stimuli. The two eyes’ images were tagged
with different temporal frequencies so that eye specific steady-state
visual evoked potential (SSVEP) signals could be extracted from the EEG
data for direct comparison with changes in fMRI BOLD activity associated
with binocular rivalry. We additionally included a smooth replay condition
that emulated the perceptual transitions experienced during binocular
rivalry as a control stimulus. We evaluated a novel SSVEP-informed fMRI
analysis in this study in order to delineate the temporal dynamics of
rivalry-related BOLD activity from both an electrophysiological and
behavioral perspective. In this manner, we assessed BOLD activity during
rivalry that was directly correlated with peaks and crosses of the two
rivaling, frequency-tagged SSVEP signals, for comparison with BOLD
activity associated with subject reported perceptual transitions. Our
findings point to a critical role of a right lateralized fronto-parietal
network in the processing of bistable stimuli, given that BOLD activity in
the right superior/inferior parietal lobules was significantly elevated
throughout binocular rivalry and in particular during perceptual
transitions, compared with the replay condition. Based on the
SSVEP-informed analysis, rivalry was further associated with significantly
enhanced BOLD suppression in the posterior mid-cingulate cortex during
perceptual transitions, compared with SSVEP crosses. Overall, this work
points to a careful interplay between early visual areas, the right
posterior parietal cortex and the mid-cingulate cortex in mediating the
spontaneous perceptual changes associated with binocular rivalry and has
significant implications for future multimodal imaging studies of
perception and awareness.