tACS can entrain cortical oscillations while bypassing the peripheral auditory system

Evidence

Compared with periodic acoustic stimulation, tACS arguably provides the preferred entrainment stimulus as it can be applied both in silence and at selected scalp position, thus allowing to bypass the peripheral auditory system and reduce possible masking of the target sound. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4768

Categorization

• QUESTION: If tACS bypasses the periphery, how exactly does current cross intervening tissue and reach auditory cortex reliably? Worth chasing for mechanism clarity.