Multiple Midfrontal Thetas Revealed by Source Separation of Simultaneous MEG and EEG

Theta-band (∼6 Hz) rhythmic activity within and over the medial PFC (“midfrontal theta”) has been identified as a distinctive signature of “response conflict,” the competition between multiple actions when only one action is goal-relevant. Midfrontal theta is traditionally conceptualized and analyzed under the assumption that it is a unitary signature of conflict that can be uniquely identified at one electrode (typically FCz). Here we recorded simultaneous MEG and EEG (total of 328 sensors) in 9 human subjects (7 female) and applied a feature-guided multivariate source-separation decomposition to determine whether conflict-related midfrontal theta is a unitary or multidimensional feature of the data. For each subject, a generalized eigendecomposition yielded spatial filters (components) that maximized the ratio between theta and broadband activity. Components were retained based on significance thresholding and midfrontal EEG topography. All of the subjects individually exhibited multiple (mean 5.89, SD 2.47) midfrontal components that contributed to sensor-level midfrontal theta power during the task. Component signals were temporally uncorrelated and asynchronous, suggesting that each midfrontal theta component was unique. Our findings call into question the dominant notion that midfrontal theta represents a unitary process. Instead, we suggest that midfrontal theta spans a multidimensional space, indicating multiple origins, but can manifest as a single feature at the sensor level because of signal mixing. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT “Midfrontal theta” is a rhythmic electrophysiological signature of the competition between multiple response options. Midfrontal theta is traditionally considered to reflect a single process. However, this assumption could be erroneous because of “mixing” (multiple sources contributing to the activity recorded at a single electrode). We investigated the dimensionality of midfrontal theta by applying advanced multivariate analysis methods to a multimodal MEG/EEG dataset. We identified multiple topographically overlapping neural sources that drove response conflict-related midfrontal theta. Midfrontal theta thus reflects multiple uncorrelated signals that manifest with similar EEG scalp projections. In addition to contributing to the cognitive control literature, we demonstrate both the feasibility and the necessity of signal demixing to understand the narrowband neural dynamics underlying cognitive processes.