Pre-stimulus Frontal-Parietal Coherence Predicts Auditory

27 Electrophysiology in primates has implicated long-range neural coherence as a potential 28 mechanism for enhancing sensory detection. To test whether local synchronization and long29 range neural coherence supports detection performance in rats, we recorded local field potentials 30 (LFPs) in frontal and parietal cortex while rats performed an auditory detection task. We 31 observed significantly elevated power at multiple low frequencies (<15 Hz) preceding the target 32 beep when the animal failed to respond to the signal (misses), in both frontal and parietal cortex. 33 In terms of long-range coherence, we observed significantly more frontal-parietal coherence in 34 the beta band (15-30 Hz) before the signal on misses, as compared to hits. This effect persisted 35 after regressing away linear trends in the coherence values during a session, showing that the 36 excess frontal-parietal beta coherence prior to misses cannot be explained by slow motivational 37 changes during a session. In addition, a trend toward higher low-frequency (<15 Hz) coherence 38 prior to miss trials compared to hits became highly significant when we re-referenced the LFPs 39 to the mean voltage on each recording array, suggesting the results are specific to our frontal and 40 parietal areas. These results do not support a role for long-range frontal-parietal coherence or 41 local synchronization in facilitating the detection of external stimuli. Rather, they extend to 42 long-range frontal-parietal coherence previous findings that correlate local synchronization of 43 low-frequency (<15 Hz) oscillations with inattention to external stimuli, and synchronization of 44 beta rhythms (15-30 Hz) with voluntary or involuntary prolongation of the current cognitive or 45 motor state. 46