Steady-state responses in the somatosensory system interact with endogenous beta activity

Abstract Brain oscillations have been related to many aspects of human behavior. To understand a potential causal relationship, it is of great importance to develop methods for modulating ongoing neural activity. It has been shown that external rhythmic stimulation leads to an oscillatory brain response that follows the temporal structure of the presented stimulus and is assumed to reflect the synchronization of ongoing neural oscillations with the stimulation rhythm. This interaction between individual brain activity and so called steady-state evoked potentials (SSEPs) is the fundamental requirement of neural entrainment. Here, we investigate whether neural responses to rhythmic vibrotactile stimulation, measured with EEG, are dependent on ongoing individual brain oscillations, and therefore reflect entrained oscillatory activity. For this, we measured phase synchronization in response to rhythmic stimulation across various frequencies in the alpha and beta band. Three different stimulation intensities were applied for each frequency relative to the individual sensory threshold. We found that a higher stimulation intensity, compared to lower intensities, resulted in a more pronounced phase synchronization with the stimulation signal. Moreover, EEG responses to low stimulation frequencies closer to individual beta peak frequencies revealed a higher degree of entrainment, compared to stimulation conditions with frequencies that were more distant to endogenous oscillations. Our findings provide evidence that the efficacy of vibrotactile rhythmic beta stimulation to evoke a SSEPs is dependent on ongoing brain oscillations.