Effects of focal frontal lesions on response inhibition

This study examined the performance of 38 normal subjects and 43 patients with focal lesions of the frontal lobes on a simple go-nogo task where the probability of the nogo stimulus was either 75% or 25%. Patients with lesions to the superior medial parts of the frontal lobes, in particular to the left superior portion of Brodmann area 6 (which includes the supplementary motor areas and the premotor areas for the right hand) had an increased number of false alarms (incorrect responses to the nogo stimulus). These results indicate that area 6 is specifically involved in the inhibition of response. Patients with lesions to the right anterior cingulate (areas 24 and 32) were slower and more variable in their reaction time. These findings could be explained by an inability to sustain stimulus-response contingencies. Lesions to the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (Brodmann areas 44, 45, 47) also increased the variability of response, perhaps by disrupting monitoring performance

Implicit Temporal Expectation Attenuates Auditory Attentional Blink

Attentional blink (AB) describes a phenomenon whereby correct identification of a first target impairs the processing of a second target (i.e., probe) nearby in time. Evidence suggests that explicit attention orienting in the time domain can attenuate the AB. Here, we used scalp-recorded, event-related potentials to examine whether auditory AB is also sensitive to implicit temporal attention orienting. Expectations were set up implicitly by varying the probability (i.e., 80% or 20%) that the probe would occur at the +2 or +8 position following target presentation. Participants showed a significant AB, which was reduced with the increased probe probability at the +2 position. The probe probability effect was paralleled by an increase in P3b amplitude elicited by the probe. The results suggest that implicit temporal attention orienting can facilitate short-term consolidation of the probe and attenuate auditory AB

Hilbert-Huang versus Morlet wavelet transformation on mismatch negativity of children in uninterrupted sound paradigm

Background. Compared to the waveform or spectrum analysis of event-related potentials (ERPs), time-frequency representation (TFR) has the advantage of revealing the ERPs time and frequency domain information simultaneously. As the human brain could be modeled as a complicated nonlinear system, it is interesting from the view of psychological knowledge to study the performance of the nonlinear and linear time-frequency representation methods for ERP research. In this study Hilbert-Huang transformation (HHT) and Morlet wavelet transformation (MWT) were performed on mismatch negativity (MMN) of children. Participants were 102 children aged 8–16 years. MMN was elicited in a passive oddball paradigm with duration deviants. The stimuli consisted of an uninterrupted sound including two alternating 100 ms tones (600 and 800 Hz) with infrequent 50 ms or 30 ms 600 Hz deviant tones. In theory larger deviant should elicit larger MMN. This theoretical expectation is used as a criterion to test two TFR methods in this study. For statistical analysis MMN support to absence ratio (SAR) could be utilized to qualify TFR of MMN. Results. Compared to MWT, the TFR of MMN with HHT was much sharper, sparser, and clearer. Statistically, SAR showed significant difference between the MMNs elicited by two deviants with HHT but not with MWT, and the larger deviant elicited MMN with larger SAR. Conclusion. Support to absence ratio of Hilbert-Huang Transformation on mismatch negativity meets the theoretical expectations, i.e., the more deviant stimulus elicits larger MMN. However, Morlet wavelet transformation does not reveal that. Thus, HHT seems more appropriate in analyzing event-related potentials in the time-frequency domain. HHT appears to evaluate ERPs more accurately and provide theoretically valid information of the brain responses.peerReviewe

Cluster analysis of behavioural and event-related potentials during a contingent negative variation paradigm in remitting-relapsing and benign forms of multiple sclerosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Event-related potentials (ERPs) may be used as a highly sensitive way of detecting subtle degrees of cognitive dysfunction. On the other hand, impairment of cognitive skills is increasingly recognised as a hallmark of patients suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS). We sought to determine the psychophysiological pattern of information processing among MS patients with the relapsing-remitting form of the disease and low physical disability considered as two subtypes: 'typical relapsing-remitting' (RRMS) and 'benign MS' (BMS). Furthermore, we subjected our data to a cluster analysis to determine whether MS patients and healthy controls could be differentiated in terms of their psychophysiological profile.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We investigated MS patients with RRMS and BMS subtypes using event-related potentials (ERPs) acquired in the context of a Posner visual-spatial cueing paradigm. Specifically, our study aimed to assess ERP brain activity in response preparation (contingent negative variation -CNV) and stimuli processing in MS patients. Latency and amplitude of different ERP components (P1, eN1, N1, P2, N2, P3 and late negativity -LN) as well as behavioural responses (reaction time -RT; correct responses -CRs; and number of errors) were analyzed and then subjected to cluster analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Both MS groups showed delayed behavioural responses and enhanced latency for long-latency ERP components (P2, N2, P3) as well as relatively preserved ERP amplitude, but BMS patients obtained more important performance deficits (lower CRs and higher RTs) and abnormalities related to the latency (N1, P3) and amplitude of ERPs (eCNV, eN1, LN). However, RRMS patients also demonstrated abnormally high amplitudes related to the preparation performance period of CNV (cCNV) and post-processing phase (LN). Cluster analyses revealed that RRMS patients appear to make up a relatively homogeneous group with moderate deficits mainly related to ERP latencies, whereas BMS patients appear to make up a rather more heterogeneous group with more severe information processing and attentional deficits.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings are suggestive of a slowing of information processing for MS patients that may be a consequence of demyelination and axonal degeneration, which also seems to occur in MS patients that show little or no progression in the physical severity of the disease over time.</p

The effect of long-term unilateral deafness on the activation pattern in the auditory cortices of French-native speakers: influence of deafness side

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In normal-hearing subjects, monaural stimulation produces a normal pattern of asynchrony and asymmetry over the auditory cortices in favour of the contralateral temporal lobe. While late onset unilateral deafness has been reported to change this pattern, the exact influence of the side of deafness on central auditory plasticity still remains unclear. The present study aimed at assessing whether left-sided and right-sided deafness had differential effects on the characteristics of neurophysiological responses over auditory areas. Eighteen unilaterally deaf and 16 normal hearing right-handed subjects participated. All unilaterally deaf subjects had post-lingual deafness. Long latency auditory evoked potentials (late-AEPs) were elicited by two types of stimuli, non-speech (1 kHz tone-burst) and speech-sounds (voiceless syllable/pa/) delivered to the intact ear at 50 dB SL. The latencies and amplitudes of the early exogenous components (N100 and P150) were measured using temporal scalp electrodes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Subjects with left-sided deafness showed major neurophysiological changes, in the form of a more symmetrical activation pattern over auditory areas in response to non-speech sound and even a significant reversal of the activation pattern in favour of the cortex ipsilateral to the stimulation in response to speech sound. This was observed not only for AEP amplitudes but also for AEP time course. In contrast, no significant changes were reported for late-AEP responses in subjects with right-sided deafness.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results show that cortical reorganization induced by unilateral deafness mainly occurs in subjects with left-sided deafness. This suggests that anatomical and functional plastic changes are more likely to occur in the right than in the left auditory cortex. The possible perceptual correlates of such neurophysiological changes are discussed.</p

Interaction between Attention and Bottom-Up Saliency Mediates the Representation of Foreground and Background in an Auditory Scene

Bottom-up (stimulus-driven) and top-down (attentional) processes interact when a complex acoustic scene is parsed. Both modulate the neural representation of the target in a manner strongly correlated with behavioral performance

Evidence for Training-Induced Plasticity in Multisensory Brain Structures: An MEG Study

Multisensory learning and resulting neural brain plasticity have recently become a topic of renewed interest in human cognitive neuroscience. Music notation reading is an ideal stimulus to study multisensory learning, as it allows studying the integration of visual, auditory and sensorimotor information processing. The present study aimed at answering whether multisensory learning alters uni-sensory structures, interconnections of uni-sensory structures or specific multisensory areas. In a short-term piano training procedure musically naive subjects were trained to play tone sequences from visually presented patterns in a music notation-like system [Auditory-Visual-Somatosensory group (AVS)], while another group received audio-visual training only that involved viewing the patterns and attentively listening to the recordings of the AVS training sessions [Auditory-Visual group (AV)]. Training-related changes in cortical networks were assessed by pre- and post-training magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings of an auditory, a visual and an integrated audio-visual mismatch negativity (MMN). The two groups (AVS and AV) were differently affected by the training. The results suggest that multisensory training alters the function of multisensory structures, and not the uni-sensory ones along with their interconnections, and thus provide an answer to an important question presented by cognitive models of multisensory training