TY - JOUR T1 - The Impact of Eye Closure on Anticipatory α Activity in a Tactile Discrimination Task JF - eneuro JO - eNeuro DO - 10.1523/ENEURO.0412-21.2021 VL - 9 IS - 1 SP - ENEURO.0412-21.2021 AU - Hesham A. ElShafei AU - Corinne Orlemann AU - Saskia Haegens Y1 - 2022/01/01 UR - http://www.eneuro.org/content/9/1/ENEURO.0412-21.2021.abstract N2 - One of the very first observations made regarding α oscillations (8–14 Hz), is that they increase in power over posterior areas when awake participants close their eyes. Recent work, especially in the context of (spatial) attention, suggests that α activity reflects a mechanism of functional inhibition. However, it remains unclear how eye closure impacts anticipatory α modulation observed in attention paradigms, and how this affects subsequent behavioral performance. Here, we recorded magnetoencephalography (MEG) in 33 human participants performing a tactile discrimination task with their eyes open versus closed. We replicated the hallmarks of previous somatosensory spatial attention studies: α lateralization across the somatosensory cortices as well as α increase over posterior (visual) regions. Furthermore, we found that eye closure leads to (1) reduced task performance; (2) widespread increase in α power; and (3) reduced anticipatory visual α modulation (4) with no effect on somatosensory α lateralization. Regardless of whether participants had their eyes open or closed, increased visual α power and somatosensory α lateralization improved their performance. Thus, we provide evidence that eye closure does not alter the impact of anticipatory α modulations on behavioral performance. We propose there is an optimal visual α level for somatosensory task performance, which can be achieved through a combination of eye closure and top-down anticipatory attention. ER -