DOCSLIB.ORG

Early-Stage Visual Processing Abnormalities in ASD by Investigating Erps Elicited in a Visual of Medicine, Louisville, KY 40202 Oddball Task Using Illusory Figures

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Early-Stage Visual Processing Abnormalities in ASD by Investigating Erps Elicited in a Visual of Medicine, Louisville, KY 40202 Oddball Task Using Illusory Figures Communication • DOI: 10.2478/v10134-010-0024-9 • Translational Neuroscience • 1(2) •2010 •177–187 Translational Neuroscience EARLy-stAGE VISUAL PROCESSING ABNORMALITIES Joshua M. Baruth1*, Manuel F. Casanova1,2, Lonnie Sears3, IN high-funcTIONING AUTISM 2 SPECTRUM DISORDEr (ASD) Estate Sokhadze Abstract 1Department of Anatomical Sciences and It has been reported that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have abnormal responses to the Neurobiology, University of Louisville sensory environment. For these individuals sensory overload can impair functioning, raise physiological School of Medicine, Louisville, KY 40202 stress, and adversely affect social interaction. Early-stage (i.e. within 200 ms of stimulus onset) auditory 2 processing abnormalities have been widely examined in ASD using event-related potentials (ERP), while Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral ERP studies investigating early-stage visual processing in ASD are less frequent. We wanted to test the Sciences, University of Louisville School hypothesis of early-stage visual processing abnormalities in ASD by investigating ERPs elicited in a visual of Medicine, Louisville, KY 40202 oddball task using illusory figures. Our results indicate that individuals with ASD have abnormally large 3Department of Pediatrics, University of cortical responses to task irrelevant stimuli over both parieto-occipital and frontal regions-of-interest Louisville School of Medicine, (ROI) during early stages of visual processing compared to the control group. Furthermore, ASD patients showed signs of an overall disruption in stimulus discrimination, and had a significantly higher rate of Louisville, KY 40202 motor response errors. Keywords Autism • Event-related potentials • EEG • Visual processing • Evoked potentials Received 8 June 2010 © Versita Sp. z o.o. accepted 24 June 2010 1. Introduction Event-related potentials (ERP) provide a Auditory processing abnormalities have unique method of characterizing the magnitude been widely examined in ASD using ERPs (see Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) includes and time course of brain activity associated [14] for review). Briefly, individuals with ASD three conditions sharing a similar core with both auditory and visual perception. ERPs have been shown to have normal brainstem symptomatology: Autism, Asperger syndrome, represent transient changes in the electrical auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) [15,16]. and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not activity of the brain in response to a given However, the most consistently reported Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). ASD is stimulus or event [6] and consist of component auditory ERP abnormality is attenuated characterized by severe disturbances in reciprocal waveforms spanning from as early as 50 ms post- amplitude of the centroparietal P300 in social relations, varying degrees of language stimulus to up to 600-1000 ms post-stimulus. various auditory stimulus presentation and communication difficulty, and restricted, For example, in the components N100 and paradigms in ASD patients of all ages [17] . repetitive and stereotyped behavioral patterns P200 the letter indicates the polarity and the Also, the short-latency fronto-central N100 [1]. It has also been suggested that individuals number indicates the period after onset of the has reliably been found to be attenuated with ASD have sensory abnormalities indicated by stimulus, i.e. 100 is in the 100-200 ms period in amplitude and latency during tasks hypersensitivity and an extraordinary interest in (or earlier) and 200 is in the 200-300 ms period involving target detection and tones of certain sensations [2]. In fact, it has been proposed [7,8]. Generally components in the first 50- varying frequency and intensity [18-21]. that sensory-perceptual abnormalities are 200 ms are considered early, exogenous field Furthermore, the mismatch negativity present in approximately 90% of individuals with potentials reflecting ‘pre-attentive’ processes (MMN), a large negative deflection occurring autism [3]. An avoidance of external stimulation and the processing of physical attributes of when frequent stimuli are subtracted from in ASD may be due to altered inhibitory control a stimulus [9,10] while those after 200 ms infrequent stimuli, has commonly been of sensory intake [4], and for these individuals represent endogenous field potentials reflecting found to be prolonged in latency in response sensory overload can impair functioning, raise polymodal associative processing and later- to pitch deviants [22-24]. physiological stress, and adversely affect social stage attentional processes (e.g. sustained ERP studies investigating early-stage visual interaction [5]. attention, perceptual closure) [11-13]. processing in ASD are less frequent (see [6] * E-mail: [email protected] 177 Translational Neuroscience for review) especially in comparison to other cortex [51] with a contribution from parieto- disrupt stimulus discrimination as compared to psychopathologies like schizophrenia [25-29]. occipital and occipito-temporal areas [49,52]; the control group. ERP studies of visual processing commonly while the visual N100 over frontal electrode sites employ an ‘oddball’ discrimination task in which most likely is reflective of frontal generators 2. Experimental Procedures the participant responds to an infrequent [43]. The visual N100 generally is augmented target stimulus among more frequent non- during attentional stimulus processing, which 2.1 Participants target stimuli [30]. Most investigations into is also know as the ‘N1-effect’ [53], and is larger Participants with autism spectrum disorder visual processing in ASD have focused on towards task-relevant target stimuli [7,48]. (ASD) (age range 9 to 20 years) were recruited higher-level, long-latency ERPs, like the P300 The visual P200 over frontal electrode sites through the University of Louisville Weisskopf [31-39]. In brief centroparietal P300 amplitude is generally found in a latency range of 180– Child Evaluation Center (WCEC). Diagnosis has been found to be similar [31-33,38,39] 320 ms poststimulus and has been reported was made according to the Diagnostic and reduced [34,37] and augmented [36] in ASD in working memory and attention tasks. Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM- patients to target stimuli compared to controls. Kenemans, Kok, & Smulders [54] described this IV-TR) [1] and further ascertained with the Remarkably to our knowledge there have only frontal positivity as a component that indexes Autism Diagnostic Interview – Revised (ADI-R) been two studies reporting on short-latency the hierarchical selection of task-relevant [57]. They also had a medical evaluation by a (i.e., 50-200 ms) visual ERPs in ASD and one features for further processing. Over inferior developmental pediatrician. All subjects had was by our group [40]; Courchesne et al. [32] frontal recording sites source localization normal hearing based on past hearing screens. included the N100 and P200 among later places dipoles of this component in the Participants either had normal vision or wore components in their analysis. orbito-frontal cortex [55,56]. The visual P200 corrective lenses. Participants with a history Visual processing is based on a core system over posterior regions has been less studied of seizure disorder, significant hearing or visual consisting of occipito-temporal regions in but likely is associated with generators in the impairment, a brain abnormality conclusive extrastriate visual cortex [41] although parietal primary visual cortex and extrastriate areas from imaging studies or an identified genetic [42] and frontal [43] regions also play a role in reflecting visual categorization processes. disorder were excluded. All participants were directing visual attention. The earliest electrical The present study was designed to evaluate high-functioning persons with ASD with full- sign of cortical activity observed in humans the cortical responses of Kanizsa visual stimuli scale IQ > 80 assessed using the Wechsler (commonly referred to the P100) during visual evoked at short latencies over frontal and Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition tasks [44] can occur as early as 50 ms post parieto-occipital regions-of-interest (ROI) [58] or the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of stimulus [45] to as late as 160 ms depending on in both children with ASD and typical age- Intelligence [59]. topography and visual task and reflects early matched controls: Kanizsa stimuli consist of Controls were recruited through categorization and recognition processes [46]. inducer disks of a shape feature and either advertisements in the local media. All control The visual P100 likely has posterior generators constitute an illusory figure (square, triangle) participants were free of neurological or in the primary visual cortex, extrastriate areas or not (colinearity feature). For the purposes significant medical disorders, had normal [29] and fusiform gyrus [47], while the anterior of this study the stimuli consisted of Kanizsa hearing and vision, and were free of psychiatric, P100 likely reflects the activation of frontal targets, Kanizsa non-targets, and non-Kanizsa learning, or developmental disorders generators [43]. The P100 may reflect early stimuli. We focused our analysis on short- based on self- and parent reports. Subjects sensory processing of attended stimuli [41] and latency field potentials, P50, N100, and were screened for history of psychiatric or is generally larger to attended visual stimuli
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Visual Event-Related Potentials of Dogs: a Non-Invasive Electroencephalography Study
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto Anim Cogn DOI 10.1007/s10071-013-0630-2 ORIGINAL PAPER Visual event-related potentials of dogs: a non-invasive electroencephalography study Heini To¨rnqvist • Miiamaaria V. Kujala • Sanni Somppi • Laura Ha¨nninen • Matti Pastell • Christina M. Krause • Jan Kujala • Outi Vainio Received: 4 July 2012 / Revised: 21 March 2013 / Accepted: 3 April 2013 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 Abstract Previously, social and cognitive abilities of neither mechanically restrained nor sedated during the dogs have been studied within behavioral experiments, but measurements. The ERPs corresponding to early visual the neural processing underlying the cognitive events processing of dogs were detectable at 75–100 ms from the remains to be clarified. Here, we employed completely stimulus onset in individual dogs, and the group-level data non-invasive scalp-electroencephalography in studying the of the 8 dogs differed significantly from zero bilaterally at neural correlates of the visual cognition of dogs. We around 75 ms at the most posterior sensors. Additionally, measured visual event-related potentials (ERPs) of eight we detected differences between the responses to human dogs while they observed images of dog and human faces and dog faces in the posterior sensors at 75–100 ms and in presented on a computer screen. The dogs were trained to the anterior sensors at 350–400 ms. To our knowledge, this lie still with positive operant conditioning, and they were is the first illustration of completely non-invasively mea- sured visual brain responses both in individual dogs and within a group-level study, using ecologically valid visual H.
    [Show full text]
  • Visual Mismatch Negativity Elicited by Facial Expressions: New Evidence from the Equiprobable Paradigm Xiying Li1,2, Yongli Lu3*, Gang Sun4, Lei Gao5 and Lun Zhao4,5*
    Li et al. Behavioral and Brain Functions 2012, 8:7 http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com/content/8/1/7 RESEARCH Open Access Visual mismatch negativity elicited by facial expressions: new evidence from the equiprobable paradigm Xiying Li1,2, Yongli Lu3*, Gang Sun4, Lei Gao5 and Lun Zhao4,5* Abstract Background: Converging evidence revealed that facial expressions are processed automatically. Recently, there is evidence that facial expressions might elicit the visual mismatch negativity (MMN), expression MMN (EMMN), reflecting that facial expression could be processed under non-attentional condition. In the present study, using a cross modality task we attempted to investigate whether there is a memory-comparison-based EMMN. Methods: 12 normal adults were instructed to simultaneously listen to a story and pay attention to a non- patterned white circle as a visual target interspersed among face stimuli. In the oddball block, the sad face was the deviant with a probability of 20% and the neutral face was the standard with a probability of 80%; in the control block, the identical sad face was presented with other four kinds of face stimuli with equal probability (20% for each). Electroencephalogram (EEG) was continuously recorded and ERPs (event-related potentials) in response to each kind of face stimuli were obtained. Oddball-EMMN in the oddball block was obtained by subtracting the ERPs elicited by the neutral faces (standard) from those by the sad faces (deviant), while controlled-EMMN was obtained by subtracting the ERPs elicited by the sad faces in the control block from those by the sad faces in the oddball block. Both EMMNs were measured and analyzed by ANOVAs (Analysis of Variance) with repeated measurements.
    [Show full text]
  • ERP Peaks Review 1 LINKING BRAINWAVES to the BRAIN
    ERP Peaks Review 1 LINKING BRAINWAVES TO THE BRAIN: AN ERP PRIMER Alexandra P. Fonaryova Key, Guy O. Dove, and Mandy J. Maguire Psychological and Brain Sciences University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky Short title: ERPs Peak Review. Key Words: ERP, peak, latency, brain activity source, electrophysiology. Please address all correspondence to: Alexandra P. Fonaryova Key, Ph.D. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences 317 Life Sciences, University of Louisville Louisville, KY 40292-0001. [email protected] ERP Peaks Review 2 Linking Brainwaves To The Brain: An ERP Primer Alexandra Fonaryova Key, Guy O. Dove, and Mandy J. Maguire Abstract This paper reviews literature on the characteristics and possible interpretations of the event- related potential (ERP) peaks commonly identified in research. The description of each peak includes typical latencies, cortical distributions, and possible brain sources of observed activity as well as the evoking paradigms and underlying psychological processes. The review is intended to serve as a tutorial for general readers interested in neuropsychological research and a references source for researchers using ERP techniques. ERP Peaks Review 3 Linking Brainwaves To The Brain: An ERP Primer Alexandra P. Fonaryova Key, Guy O. Dove, and Mandy J. Maguire Over the latter portion of the past century recordings of brain electrical activity such as the continuous electroencephalogram (EEG) and the stimulus-relevant event-related potentials (ERPs) became frequent tools of choice for investigating the brain’s role in the cognitive processing in different populations. These electrophysiological recording techniques are generally non-invasive, relatively inexpensive, and do not require participants to provide a motor or verbal response.
    [Show full text]
  • XXIII National Congress of the Italian Society of Psychophysiology Main
    XXIII National Congress of the Italian Society of Psychophysiology – Scientific Program XXIII National Congress of the Italian Society of Psychophysiology PROCEEDINGS - ABSTRACTS Main lectures Sinigaglia C. The space of action 51 Strata P. The responsible mind 51 Symposia abstracts Addabbo M. - Bolognini N. - Nava E. - Turati C. The processing of others’ touch early in human development 53 Betti V. Dynamic reorganization of functional connectivity 54 during naturalist viewing Bevilacqua V. Home environment perception and virtual reality: cognitive 55 and emotional reactions to domotic induced changes of colours and sounds Bocci T. From metaplasticity to interhemispheric connectivity: 56 electrophysiological interrogation of human visual cortical circuits in health and disease Bortoletto M. TMS-EEG coregistration in the exploration of human cortical 57 connectivity Bove M. An integrated approach to investigate the human neuroplasticity 57 Brattico E. The impact of sound environments on the brain circuits 58 for mood, emotion, and pain Cattaneo L. The motor cortex as integrator in sensorimotor behavior 59 Cecchetti L. How (lack of) vision shapes the morphological architecture 60 of the human brain: congenital blindness affects diencephalic but not mesencephalic structures Neuropsychological Trends – 18/2015 http://www.ledonline.it/neuropsychologicaltrends/ 6 XXIII National Congress of the Italian Society of Psychophysiology – Scientific Program Costantini M. Objects within the sensorimotor system 61 De Cesarei A. - Codispoti M. Relationship between perception and emotional responses 61 to static natural scenes De Pascalis V. - Scacchia P. Influence of pain expectation and hypnotizability 62 on auditory startle responses during placebo analgesia in waking and hypnosis: a brain potential study Garbarini F. Feeling sensations on the other’s body after brain damages 63 Gazzola V.
    [Show full text]
  • Functionally Dissociated Aspects in Anterior and Posterior Electrocortical Processing of Facial Threat
    International Journal of Psychophysiology 53 (2004) 29–36 Functionally dissociated aspects in anterior and posterior electrocortical processing of facial threat Dennis J.L.G. Schutter*, Edward H.F. de Haan, Jack van Honk Helmholtz Research Institute, Affective Neuroscience Section, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands Received 12 June 2003; received in revised form 1 October 2003; accepted 15 January 2004 Available Online 9 April 2004 Abstract The angry facial expression is an important socially threatening stimulus argued to have evolved to regulate social hierarchies. In the present study, event-related potentials (ERP) were used to investigate the involvement and temporal dynamics of the frontal and parietal regions in the processing of angry facial expressions. Angry, happy and neutral faces were shown to eighteen healthy right-handed volunteers in a passive viewing task. Stimulus-locked ERPs were recorded from the frontal and parietal scalp sites. The P200, N300 and early contingent negativity variation (eCNV) components of the electric brain potentials were investigated. Analyses revealed statistical significant reductions in P200 amplitudes for the angry facial expression on both frontal and parietal electrode sites. Furthermore, apart from being strongly associated with the anterior P200, the N300 showed to be more negative for the angry facial expression in the anterior regions also. Finally, the eCNV was more pronounced over the parietal sites for the angry facial expressions. The present study demonstrated specific electrocortical correlates underlying the processing of angry facial expressions in the anterior and posterior brain sectors. The P200 is argued to indicate valence tagging by a fast and early detection mechanism.
    [Show full text]
  • Auditory P300 and N100 Components As Intermediate Phenotypes for Psychotic Disorder: Familial Liability and Reliability ⇑ Claudia J.P
    Clinical Neurophysiology 122 (2011) 1984–1990 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Clinical Neurophysiology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/clinph Auditory P300 and N100 components as intermediate phenotypes for psychotic disorder: Familial liability and reliability ⇑ Claudia J.P. Simons a,b, , Anke Sambeth c, Lydia Krabbendam a,e, Stefanie Pfeifer a, Jim van Os a,d, Wim J. Riedel c a Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, Maastricht University, European Graduate School of Neuroscience, SEARCH, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands b GGzE, Institute of Mental Health Care Eindhoven en de Kempen, P.O. Box 909, 5600 AX Eindhoven, The Netherlands c Department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands d Visiting Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology, King’s College London, King’s Health Partners, Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, UK e Centre Brain and Learning, Department of Psychology and Education, VU University Amsterdam, van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands article info highlights Article history: A reliable N100 latency delay was found in unaffected siblings of patients with a psychotic disorder. Accepted 28 February 2011 P300 amplitude and latency were not found to be affected in siblings. Available online 1 April 2011 Short-term test–retest reliability of N100 and P300 components were sound across patients, siblings and controls, with the main exception of N100 latency in patients. Keywords: Electroencephalography Event-related potentials abstract Psychoses Schizophrenia Objective: Abnormalities of the auditory P300 are a robust finding in patients with psychosis. The pur- Test–retest poses of this study were to determine whether patients with a psychotic disorder and their unaffected Relatives siblings show abnormalities in P300 and N100 and to establish test–retest reliabilities for these ERP com- ponents.
    [Show full text]
  • Early and Late Effects of Objecthood and Spatial Frequency on Event-Related Potentials and Gamma Band Activity
    Craddock et al. BMC Neuroscience (2015) 16:6 DOI 10.1186/s12868-015-0144-8 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Early and late effects of objecthood and spatial frequency on event-related potentials and gamma band activity Matt Craddock1,2, Jasna Martinovic3 and Matthias M Müller1* Abstract Background: The visual system may process spatial frequency information in a low-to-high, coarse-to-fine sequence. In particular, low and high spatial frequency information may be processed via different pathways during object recognition, with LSF information projected rapidly to frontal areas and HSF processed later in visual ventral areas. In an electroencephalographic study, we examined the time course of information processing for images filtered to contain different ranges of spatial frequencies. Participants viewed either high spatial frequency (HSF), low spatial frequency (LSF), or unfiltered, broadband (BB) images of objects or non-object textures, classifying them as showing either man-made or natural objects, or non-objects. Event-related potentials (ERPs) and evoked and total gamma band activity (eGBA and tGBA) recorded using the electroencephalogram were compared for object and non-object images across the different spatial frequency ranges. Results: The visual P1 showed independent modulations by object and spatial frequency, while for the N1 these factors interacted. The P1 showed more positive amplitudes for objects than non-objects, and more positive amplitudes for BB than for HSF images, which in turn evoked more positive amplitudes than LSF images. The peak-to-peak N1 showed that the N1 was much reduced for BB non-objects relative to all other images, while HSF and LSF non-objects still elicited as negative an N1 as objects.
    [Show full text]
  • Multiple Mechanisms Link Prestimulus Neural Oscillations to Sensory Responses
    RESEARCH ARTICLE Multiple mechanisms link prestimulus neural oscillations to sensory responses Luca Iemi1,2,3*, Niko A Busch4,5, Annamaria Laudini6, Saskia Haegens1,7, Jason Samaha8, Arno Villringer2,6, Vadim V Nikulin2,3,9,10* 1Department of Neurological Surgery, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City, United States; 2Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; 3Centre for Cognition and Decision Making, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russian Federation; 4Institute of Psychology, University of Mu¨ nster, Mu¨ nster, Germany; 5Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Mu¨ nster, Mu¨ nster, Germany; 6Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt- Universita¨ t zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany; 7Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands; 8Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, United States; 9Department of Neurology, Charite´-Universita¨ tsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; 10Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin, Germany Abstract Spontaneous fluctuations of neural activity may explain why sensory responses vary across repeated presentations of the same physical stimulus. To test this hypothesis, we recorded electroencephalography in humans during stimulation with identical visual stimuli and analyzed how prestimulus neural oscillations modulate different stages of sensory processing reflected by distinct components of the event-related potential (ERP). We found that strong prestimulus alpha- and beta-band power resulted in a suppression of early ERP components (C1 and N150) and in an *For correspondence: amplification of late components (after 0.4 s), even after controlling for fluctuations in 1/f aperiodic [email protected] (LI); signal and sleepiness.
    [Show full text]
  • Unspecific Hypervigilance and Spatial Attention in Early Visual Perception
    Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Advance Access published May 24, 2013 doi:10.1093/scan/nst044 SCAN (2013) 1 of 7 Timing the fearful brain: unspecific hypervigilance and spatial attention in early visual perception Mathias Weymar,1,2 Andreas Keil,2 and Alfons O. Hamm1 1Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology, University of Greifswald, 17487 Greifswald, Germany and 2Center for the Study of Emotion and Attention (CSEA), University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA Numerous studies suggest that anxious individuals are more hypervigilant to threat in their environment than nonanxious individuals. In the present event-related potential (ERP) study, we sought to investigate the extent to which afferent cortical processes, as indexed by the earliest visual component C1, are biased in observers high in fear of specific objects. In a visual search paradigm, ERPs were measured while spider-fearful participants and controls searched for discrepant objects (e.g. spiders, butterflies, flowers) in visual arrays. Results showed enhanced C1 amplitudes in response to spatially directed target stimuli in spider-fearful participants only. Furthermore, enhanced C1 amplitudes were observed in response to all discrepant targets and distractors in spider-fearful compared with non-anxious participants, irrespective of fearful and non-fearful target contents. This pattern of results is in line with theoretical notions of heightened sensory sensitivity (hypervigilance) to external stimuli in high-fearful individuals. Specifically, the findings suggest that fear facilitates afferent cortical processing in the human visual cortex in a non-specific and temporally sustained fashion, when Downloaded from observers search for potential threat cues. Keywords: emotion; hypervigilance; spatial attention; C1; event-related potentials (ERPs) http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/ INTRODUCTION in specific object fear should show sensory facilitation when expecting Voluntary attention to a specific location in the environment results in to confront the feared object.
    [Show full text]
  • COGNITIVE ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY and ATTENTION Early Evoked EEG Components, Attention and Brain Oscillations
    © 2001 Manuel Schabus University of Salzburg Institute of Psychology COGNITIVE ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY AND ATTENTION Early evoked EEG components, attention and brain oscillations DIPLOMARBEIT Zur Erlangung des Magistergrades an der Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Salzburg Eingereicht von Manuel Schabus (Betreuung: Dr. Univ.-Prof. Wolfgang Klimesch) Salzburg, 11.07.2001 © 2001 Manuel Schabus Contents 1 BASICS OF ATTENTION................................................................................................5 2 ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY (EEG): BASIC PRINCIPLES ...........................6 2.1 SPONTANEOUS FREQUENCIES OF THE BRAIN (EEG - RHYTHMS).....................................7 3 EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS ................................................................................9 3.1 AN INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................9 3.2 MECHANISMS AND MODELS OF SELECTIVE ATTENTION...............................................11 3.3 AUDITORY SELECTIVE ATTENTION AND FEATURE SELECTION.....................................13 3.4 VISUAL – SPATIAL ATTENTION AND FEATURE SELECTION ..........................................16 3.4.1 Visual-spatial attention paradigms ......................................................................16 3.4.2 Enhanced sensory processing or decision bias? ..................................................20 3.4.3 Where are those early components located?........................................................21 3.5 ERP
    [Show full text]
  • Improvement in Visual Search with Practice: Mapping Learning-Related Changes in Neurocognitive Stages of Processing
    The Journal of Neuroscience, April 1, 2015 • 35(13):5351–5359 • 5351 Behavioral/Cognitive Improvement in Visual Search with Practice: Mapping Learning-Related Changes in Neurocognitive Stages of Processing Kait Clark,1,3 L. Gregory Appelbaum,1,4 Berry van den Berg,1,5 Stephen R. Mitroff,1,2 and Marty G. Woldorff1,2,4 1Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and 2Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, 3School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AT, United Kingdom, 4Department of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27708, and 5BCN Neuroimaging Center, University of Groningen, 9700 AB Groningen, The Netherlands Practice can improve performance on visual search tasks; the neural mechanisms underlying such improvements, however, are not clear. Response time typically shortens with practice, but which components of the stimulus–response processing chain facilitate this behav- ioral change? Improved search performance could result from enhancements in various cognitive processing stages, including (1) sensory processing, (2) attentional allocation, (3) target discrimination, (4) motor-response preparation, and/or (5) response execution. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) as human participants completed a five-day visual-search protocol in which they reported the orientation of a color popout target within an array of ellipses. We assessed changes in behavioral performance and in ERP compo- nents associated with various stages of processing. After practice, response time decreased in all participants (while accuracy remained consistent), and electrophysiological measures revealed modulation of several ERP components. First, amplitudes of the early sensory- evoked N1 component at 150 ms increased bilaterally, indicating enhanced visual sensory processing of the array.
    [Show full text]
  • Differences in Early and Late Pattern-Onset Visual-Evoked Potentials Between Self
    Differences in Early and Late Pattern-Onset Visual-Evoked Potentials between Self- Reported Migraineurs and Controls 1Chun Yuen Fong* 1Wai Him Crystal Law 3Jason Braithwaite 1,2Ali Mazaheri 1 School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, UK, B15 2TT. 2 Centre of Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham. UK, B15 2TT. 3 Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, UK, LA1 4YF. *corresponding author: Email: [email protected] (Chun Yuen Fong) Abstract Striped patterns have been shown to induce strong visual illusions and discomforts to migraineurs in the literature. Previous research has suggested that those unusual visual symptoms can be linked with the hyperactivity on the visual cortex of migraine sufferers. The present study searched for evidence supporting this hypothesis by comparing the visual evoked potentials (VEPs) elicited by striped patterns of specific spatial frequencies (0.5, 3, and 13 cycles-per-degree) between a group of 29 migraineurs (17 with aura/12 without) and 31 non-migraineurs. In addition, VEPs to the same stripped patterns were compared between non-migraineurs who were classified as hyperexcitable versus non-hyperexcitable using a previously established behavioural pattern glare task. We found that the migraineurs had a significantly increased N2 amplitude for stimuli with 13 cpd gratings but an attenuated late negativity (LN: 400 – 500 ms after the stimuli onset) for all the spatial frequencies. Interestingly, non-migraineurs who scored as hyperexcitable appeared to have similar response patterns to the migraineurs, albeit in an attenuated form. We proposed that the enhanced N2 could reflect disruption of the balance between parvocellular and magnocellular pathway, which is in support of a grating-induced cortical hyperexcitation mechanism on migraineurs.
    [Show full text]