Cortical distance, not cancellation, dominates inter-subject EEG gamma rhythm amplitude

The neurophysiological response to visual stimulation in both humans and animals is characterized by an increase in high frequency amplitude peaking in the gamma range (40–100Hz) and a suppression of low frequency amplitude peaking in the alpha range (10–16Hz). Due to the large number of studies linking amplitude and peak frequency to perception and neurological disorders, there is great interest in understanding the basis of inter-subject variability in gamma and alpha responses. To address this, we measured gamma and alpha amplitude and peak frequency of response to visual stimulation in 42 healthy humans. Using FMRI to delineate active cortical tissue in the same subjects, we correlated these neurophysiological metrics with two structural metrics: distance from active cortex to electrode, and dipole cancellation over active cortex. We find that distance strongly predicted inter-subject gamma amplitude, but had little effect on alpha amplitude, while cancellation had little effect on gamma or alpha amplitude. Neither alpha peak frequency nor gamma peak frequency correlated with our structural metrics. These results suggest that inter-subject variability in gamma amplitude may reflect gross morphology rather than neurophysiological variability, and should be interpreted with caution, while peak frequency may serve as a more sensitive metric of differences in neuronal activity across subjects. •Visually Induced EEG alpha and gamma amplitude varies across subjects.•Anatomical metrics (distance, cancellation) may predict EEG amplitude.•Gamma but not alpha depends on distance and to a lesser extent cancellation.•Source localization using native anatomy attenuates distance effects on gamma amplitude.•Gamma peak frequency is independent of anatomical metrics.