Auditory evoked transient and sustained potentials in the human EGG: II. Effects of small doses of ethanol

The effect of small doses of ethanol (0.4 ) on auditory evoked transient and sustained potentials was studied. Tones of 1-second duration were presented in trains of four stimuli (interstimulus interval = 1 second; intertrain interval = 1 minute). The electroencephalogram was recorded from derivation Cz-Al. Ethanol depressed the transient responses both at the first stimulus of the train and during repeated stimuli. The sustained potentials elicited by the first stimuli of the train were not affected by ethanol, whereas the sustained potentials elicited by repeated stimuli were larger in amplitude under the influence of ethanol than during control experiments. It is suggested that the decrease of the transient responses under the influence of ethanol is mainly due to depression of the reticular formation, whereas the increase of sustained potentials reflects ethanol-induced release of intracortical inhibition.     

Auditory evoked transient and sustained potentials in the human EEG: II. Effects of small doses of ethanol.

The effect of small doses of ethanol (0.4 g/kg) on auditory evoked transient and sustained potentials was studied. Tones of 1-second duration were presented in trains of four stimuli (interstimulus interval = 1 second; intertrain interval = 1 minute). The electroencephalogram was recorded from derivation Cz-Al. Ethanol depressed the transient responses both at the first stimulus of the train and during repeated stimuli. The sustained potentials elicited by the first stimuli of the train were not affected by ethanol, whereas the sustained potentials elicited by repeated stimuli were larger in amplitude under the influence of ethanol than during control experiments. It is suggested that the decrease of the transient responses under the influence of ethanol is mainly due to depression of the reticular formation, whereas the increase of sustained potentials reflects ethanol-induced release of intracortical inhibition.     

Cognitive evoked potentials to anticipated oesophageal stimulus in humans: quantitative assessment of the cognitive aspects of visceral perception

Evoked potential studies provide an objective measure of the neural pathways involved with perception. The effects of cognitive factors, such as anticipation or awareness, on evoked potentials are not known. The aim was to compare the evoked potential response to oesophageal stimulation with the cortical activity associated with anticipation of the same stimulus. In 12 healthy men (23.5 +/- 4 years), oesophageal electrical stimulation (15 mA, 0.2 Hz, 0.2 msec) was applied, and the evoked potentials recorded using scalp electrodes. A computerized model of randomly skipped stimuli (4:1 ratio) was used to separately record the evoked potentials associated with stimulation and those associated with an anticipated stimulus. The electrical stimulus represented the nontarget stimulus and the skipped impulse the target (anticipatory) stimulus. This anticipatory evoked potential was also compared to auditory P300 evoked potentials. Reproducible evoked potentials and auditory P300 responses were elicited in all subjects. Anticipatory evoked potentials (peak latency 282.1 +/- 7.9 msec, amplitude 8.2 +/- 0.7 microV, P < 0.05 vs auditory P300 evoked potential) were obtained with the skipped stimulus. This anticipatory evoked potential was located frontocentrally, while the auditory P300 potential was located in the centro-parietal cortex. The anticipatory evoked potential associated with expectation of an oesophageal stimulus, although of similar latency to that of the auditory P300 evoked response, originates from a different cortical location. The recording of cognitive evoked potentials to an expected oesophageal stimulus depends on attention to, and awareness of, the actual stimulus. Anticipatory evoked potentials to GI stimuli may provide an objective electrophysiological tool for the assessment of the cognitive factors associated with visceral perception.     

Auditory event-related potentials in the squirrel monkey: Parallels to human late wave responses

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from the brain surface in squirrel monkeys during the presentation of two auditory stimulus paradigms which have previously been utilized to elicit scalp-recorded ERPs in humans. In the first paradigm, inter-stimulus interval (ISI) was systematically varied during the presentation of a series of tone pips. The tones produced a negative (70 ms)-positive (130 ms) sequence of components similar in morphology to the human scalp-recorded N1-P2 'vertex' potential. The amplitude of the N70 and P130 components recorded from midline electrodes decreased with decreasing ISI, as previously shown for the human vertex potential. However, this amplitude change with ISI was not observed in ERPs recorded from lateral frontal and temporal electrodes. These results agree with previous studies of monkeys and humans which suggest at least two different sources contribute to N1-P2 components recorded in response to tones. The effects of stimulus probability and novelty on ERP morphology and amplitude were studied in the second paradigm. ERPs elicited by frequent (P = 0.92) and infrequent (P = 0.08) tone pips presented in an unpredictable order were compared. N70 - P130 components were produced by both stimuli, and the infrequent stimuli also elicited a broad, long latency (300 ms) positive complex that decreased in amplitude with repeated presentations. In humans the same infrequent auditory stimuli produce a frontally distributed late positive component that has been interpreted as indicating the activation of orientation mechanisms or of a 'mismatch detector'. These data suggest that in these paradigms squirrel monkeys exhibit ERPs which are similar in several respects to ERPs recorded to identical stimuli in humans.     

Expectancy-Related Cerebral Potentials Associated with Voluntary Time Estimation and Omitted Stimulus

Abstract: Expectancy-related and nonexpectancy-related cerebral potentials associated with stimuli and omitted stimuli were recorded in 7 normal subjects. The stimuli were constantly delivered to the right median nerve and the inter-stimulus interval was set at 7 seconds.
When the subject counted to estimate the interstimulus interval correctly, a slow negative deflection appeared about one second prior to both the stimuli and the omitted stimuli. In the case of the omitted stimulus, this expectancy-related negative potential (ENP) returned to the base line after several hundred msec. When the stimuli were delivered, the amplitude of the P300 was much higher when the subject was paying attention to the stimuli than when he was not.
The scalp distribution of the ENP was rather anterior to the P300. No ENP appeared when the subject was not paying attention to the stimuli or the omitted stimuli, or when the stimuli were delivered at a random rate.     

Neural mechanisms of evoked oscillations: stability and interaction with transient events

There is increasing evidence that early event-related potentials are a result of phase alignment of ongoing background oscillations of the electroencephalogram rather than additive amplitude modulation. Steady state visual-evoked potentials (ssVEPs) can be recorded using an intensity modulated stimulus, resulting in an evoked brain response at a known frequency, i.e. the stimulation frequency. Given this property, the ssVEP is ideally suited for examining the relationship between single-trial fluctuations in phase/amplitude and the evoked brain potential resulting from averaging across trials. To address this issue, the current study investigated the contribution of single trial power and intertrial phase locking to ssVEP generation by presenting a peripheral flicker. Further, transient stimuli were presented during flicker and at three increasing latency lags following flicker offset to examine (1) to what extent a stimulus can disturb the ssVEP oscillation and (2) how phase alignment during P1-N1-P2 time windows is affected during presence of evoked oscillations. The former assessment evaluates the stability of ssVEPs and the latter the phase alignment processes to transient stimuli under experimentally induced background oscillations. We observed that ssVEPs are a result of phase alignment rather than single trial amplitude modulation. In addition, ssVEP oscillations were not disturbed by transient stimuli. Finally, phase alignment in P1-N1-P2 time windows was distorted during and shortly after steady state stimulation. We conclude that ssVEPs represent strongly phase locked oscillations sharing the same generation mechanisms as early evoked potentials.     

Distractible children show abnormal orienting to non-attended auditory stimuli.

Event-related potentials were recorded in response to intermittently presented, non-attended trains of identical auditory stimuli in healthy 9-year-old children. In abnormally distractible children (n =24), the first tone in each train elicited a significantly larger N1 vertex response than in the non-distractible children (n 24), suggesting that increased distractibility may be associated with an abnormally strong cerebral orienting towards non-attended stimuli. A later negativity at around 300 ms, which increases in amplitude with stimulus repetition and may thus reflect the building up of a functional neuronal representation of the stimulus properties, was significantly smaller in the distractible than in the non-distractible children. These findings demonstrate that event-related potential measures may be useful in helping to understand the information processing found in distractible children.     

Auditory brain-stem potentials studied with paired stimuli in normals

Summary Brain-stem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) to paired stimuli of various intervals were recorded using a subtraction technique to cancel the first and facilitate recognition of the second response. In a pilot series of 12 experiments, no latency change was encountered with paired click intervals (PCI) of 8 and 6 ms. Thirty healthy subjects were then investigated by presenting single and paired stimuli with a PCI of 4, 3.1, 2.3 and 1.5 ms at a repetition rate of 10/s to each subject. With diminishing PCIs, identification and latency measurement of waves IV and V became increasingly difficult because of marked amplitude reduction. Component III remained identifiable in all but two recordings and showed a statistically significant latency increase and amplitude reduction only when the stimuli were presented 1.5 ms apart. Component I did not show a consistent latency change with any PCI but its amplitude was significantly reduced with 4 ms PCI. These findings differ from those reported when using PCIs of 5 ms or more and when using single stimuli at a high repetition rate, where component V was the most stable. The alterations of evoked potentials found only with a PCI of 1.5 ms are probably of central origin.Presented in part at the 29th conference of the German Neurological Society in Düsseldorf, 11–13 October 1984     

Evoked potentials from the dentate gyrus during auditory stimulus generalization in the rat

Averaged evoked potentials were recorded from the outer molecular layer of the denate gyrus in freely moving rats undergoing tests of stimulus generalization during performance of an auditory discrimination task. Results indicated that the two major negative components (N₁ and N₂) were reciprocally related to the degree of stimulus generalization as indicated by the behavioral response gradient. The N₁ component was larger when stimuli were least similar in frequency to the originally trained stimulus, whereas the N₂ component was smaller under those same conditions. Destruction of either the entorhinal cortex or the medial and lateral septal nuclei resulted in differential alterations in both stimulus generalization behavior and components of the averaged potentials from the outer molecular layer. The results suggest differential functional roles for the septal and entorhinal projections to the dentate gyrus of the rodent hippocampal formation.     

Brain stem auditory evoked response development in the kitten

The development of brain stem auditory evoked responses (BAERs), recorded from a surface electrode as short-latency, volume-conducted potentials, was studied in a series of kittens over a postnatal period ranging from birth to 60 days. Repeated, longitudinal observations on particular kittens were supplemented with observations on additional kittens during the first and second postnatal week to determine age of onset of the BAERs. The position of the animal and sound source within the recording chamber were held constant across recording sessions, as was click intensity except during recordings in which intensity effects were specifically studied. Click rates of 1, 10, 50 and 100/sec were routinely presented. Reference electrodes at the tongue, pinna and neck showed volume-conducted responses to the click stimuli and resulted in considerable distortion of the activity recorded by the vertex electrod; the forepaw, in contrast, showed no activity and a vertex-forepaw electrode configuration provided good resolution of the BAERs across development.A number of new observations were made. BAERs were first observed at 4 days of age, approximately the same age at which depth evoked potentials are first recorded in brain stem auditory nuclei. Initially the BAERs were diffuse, high threshold and fatigued rapidly, characteristics shared with depth evoked potentials in the early postnatal period. Over the first two weeks, the potentials showed marked decrease in threshold, increased resistance to fast click rates, and better definition of wave forms. All BAER components showed exponential decreases in latency. Because all of the brain stem evoked potentials could be recorded concurrently and longitudinally in the same subject a number of developmental comparisons were possible among the BAER components. Wave 1, related to the acoustic nerve in the adult cat, showed a developmental time course and adult latency similar to that reported for N₁. Wave 2, related to the cochlear nucleus in the adult, showed a marked bimodality over the first month; wave 2a was a large amplitude clearly separated wave which gradually fused as an inconspicuous conspicuous leading shoulder on wave 2b. Wave 2b developed with a time course and adult latency similar to that reported for the ventral cochlear nucleus. Wave 3, related to the region of the superior olivary complex in the adult, showed a clear but transient bimodality during the third week of development. Wave 5, related to the inferior colliculus in the adult, appeared later than waves 1–4 and showed a significantly slower rate of development than waves 1–4. These data indicate that differential developmental changes occur within the brain stem auditory pathway and that the BAERs provide a dynamic probe of concurrent maturational interactions.     

Intracortical evoked potentials of cats elicited by punctate visual stimuli in receptive field peripheries

Intracortical visual evoked potentials, related to stimulus eccentricity from receptive field center, were investigated as a possible measure of interaction among adjacent populations of cortical neurons. Displacement of the stimuli from field center resulted in (1) a progressive decline in amplitude of the primary potential and (2) an enhancement or development of longer latency (60–100 ms) ‘secondary’ potentials often not apparent with field center stimulation.     

Cortical augmenting in alexithymic subjects after unpleasant acoustic stimulation

OBJECTIVE: Alexithymia has a high prevalence in patients with chronic or somatoform pain disorders. Various investigations demonstrated a hypersensitivity and low tolerance of alexithymics to touch and painful stimulation. It was argued that alexithymic characteristics may lead an individual to augment stimuli in order to prevent ignoring stimuli that might be dangerous. Therefore, there may be a relation to the reducer-augmenter construct. To test this hypothesis, cortical reactivity in response to unpleasant acoustical stimulation was measured. METHODS: Nineteen high alexithymics and 18 low alexithymics were stimulated with five series of acoustic stimuli (white noise) of different intensity levels. Evoked potentials were recorded at electroencephalogram electrodes Fz, Cz, and Pz. RESULTS: With ascending stimulus intensities, both groups showed increasing P1-N1 and N1-P2 peak-to-peak amplitudes. High alexithymics had higher P1-N1 amplitudes and a stronger intensity-dependent slope of P1-N1 amplitude. In contrast to that, N1-P2 amplitude of low alexithymics tended to decrease in response to the highest stimulus intensity level. CONCLUSION: High alexithymic subjects seem to behave like cortical augmenters. This may be due to a disturbed transmarginal inhibition, which may normally serve as a protective physiological mechanism.     

The speech evoked potential in normal subjects and patients with cerebral hemispheric lesions

The present study deals with observations on the “speech evoked potential”-a late positive potential evoked by word repetition. These potentials, evoked by “silent” repetition of polysyllabic words, were averaged and recorded from the scalp overlying the inferior frontal regions on both sides in 20 normal healthy subjects of ages ranging from 13–58 years. The potential had a triphasic negative, positive, negative morphology and was present over both hemispheres in left as well as right handed subjects. The main positive deflection and mean latencies of 219.2 msec and 221.6 msec and mean amplitude of 6.2 μv and 6.5 μv respectively on the left and right sides. Though there were interindividual variations in latency, amplitude and morphology, there was a high degree of intraindividual similarity and reproducibility in subjects. The variations in these parameters with age, sex and handedness are discussed. In 10 patients with cerebral lesions, the evoked potential was normal in 5 cases with right frontal lesions and showed abnormalities in 3 of 5 cases with left frontal lesions. The speech evoked potential may be useful in the further study of electrical correlates of speech output in speech disorders.     

Compound action potentials recorded intracranially from the auditory nerve in man

We describe the characteristics of the compound action potentials recorded from the intracranial part of the auditory nerve in man and the ralation between this potential and the various peaks in the auditory brain stem evoked potential. Recorded using a monopolar electrode, the shape of this potential varies from subject to subject. It often has a triphasic shape as can be expected of the field potentials of a long nerve. The main negative peak occurs 3.0 to 3.8 ms after the onset of a 2000-Hz stimulus tone at 90 dB. Recordings from two sites on the nerve have a similar wave shape. The difference in the latencies of these two recordings is associated with the estimated conduction velocity of the nerve. The latency of the main negative peak in the compound action potential of the auditory nerve was found to match the latency of the second mastoid-positive (vertex-negative) peak of the brain stem evoked potentials recorded from the scalp.     

Spinal epidural corticomotor evoked potentials as a predictor of outcome from ischaemic myelopathy

Abstract

Corticomotor evoked potentials have been suggested to accurately reflect neurological function>, particularly with regard to the integrity of the spinal cord. However, the utility of these potentials to evaluate graded, chronic injury has received little attention. Using a rabbit model of ischaemic spinal cord injury we recorded corticomotor evoked potentials before, during, immediately after, and three days after producing an ischaemic spinal cord injury by inflating an intraaortic balloon. The animals sustained a stable mild, moderate, or severe neurological deficit. All ischaemic injured animals demonstrated near loss of the corticomotor evoked potential after the timed balloon occlusion period. Mildly injured animals did not demonstrate significant differences in corticomotor evoked potentials at reperfusion of three days post injury, when compared to controls. However; moderate and severely injured animals revealed significant reduction in late latency component amplitudes by > 50% and > 90%, respectively, when compared to controls. Changes in corticomotor evoked potential features are associated with altered neurological function after graded spinal cord injury. [Neurol Res 1993; 15: 104–108]     

Field potentials in the human hippocampus during the encoding and recognition of visual stimuli

Intracranial field potentials were recorded from electrodes implanted in the hippocampus in 12 epileptic patients. Potentials were elicited by stimuli presented during a delayed matching-to-sample test. Each trial began with a sample stimulus composed of a 3 x 3 grid of rectangular color patches. The sample was followed by a sequence of similar but task-irrelevant stimuli and the sequential presentation of two test stimuli, one of which was identical to the sample. Patients indicated their recognition of the test stimulus that matched the sample with a button press. High-amplitude negative potentials were consistently elicited by sample and test stimuli. Peak amplitudes occurred 300-500 ms after stimulus onset and were larger for the sample in all cases. The patterns of potential gradients observed between adjacent hippocampal contacts and the locations of maximal amplitudes, as verified by magnetic resonance imaging in seven patients, suggest that these potentials were produced by neuronal activity in posterior hippocampus. These field potentials appear to index a memory storage function engaged in response to events that will later be remembered. The hippocampal contribution to storing declarative memories can thus begin, in some circumstances, within the first half-second after the presentation of a to-be-remembered stimulus.     

Contribution of changes in click rate and intensity on diagnosis of multiple sclerosis by brainstem auditory evoked potentials

Brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) were recorded in 51 patients with different degrees of certainty with respect to multiple sclerosis (MS): Definite, probable and possible ( McAlpine et al. 1972). Click stimuli were presented at various intensities and rates which were thought to stress the auditory pathways. The main types of abnormal BAEP traces were the absence of some of the brainstem waves (in the presence of a normal audiogram), prolonged brainstem transmission time (BTT) and abnormal amplitude ratio. In the definite MS group, average BTT was prolonged and average amplitude ratio was more than two standard deviations greater than the corresponding parameter in the normal group. The stressful manoeuvres of increasing click repetition rate and lowering click intensity increased the degree of abnormality of BAEP traces. There was no case in which the response to standard click stimuli (75 dB HL, 10 or 20 per sec) showed a normal trace while increasing the stimulus repetition rate and/or decreasing intensity showed a pathological response. The pathophysiology of BAEP traces in MS is discussed.     

The influence of changes in the intensity of magnetic stimulation on coil output

We measured the peak voltage induced in a sensing loop by a Magstim 200 magnetic stimulator. Coil output varied little for repeated stimulation at the same intensity over a wide range of coil output. In contrast, the first stimulus immediately after a change in intensity was of larger amplitude and showed greater variability than subsequent stimuli. The effect was seen for changes in intensity of 5% and 60% and was greater for reductions than for increases in stimulation intensity. Stimulation immediately after a reduction in intensity from 100% to 40% resulted in peak induced voltages as high as those recorded for repeated stimulation at 43% of maximum coil output. Increased coil output following changes in stimulation intensity may affect measurement of the threshold for motor cortical stimulation. The effect of a change in intensity could be minimized by delaying stimulation for at least 30 s or discarding the first stimulus after the change. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Binaural interaction effects on the auditory brainstem response of the cat and kitten

The auditory brainstem response (ABR) is a series of volume conducted potentials that can be recorded from the scalp within 10 ms following auditory stimulation. Differences between ABRs evoked with binaural stimulation and those constructed by summing equivalent numbers of monaural stimulation to each ear indicate the presence of binaural interaction for some ABR potentials but not for others. In the present study, ABR binaural interactions were studied in both cats and kittens. Binaural interactions were not seen for waves 1-3 but were present at the latencies of waves 4, 5 and, in most cases, 6. The sound intensities used were selected to insure that acoustic cross-over, i.e. sound presented monaurally to one ear stimulating the other, did not influence binaural interaction effects. Experiments with cats that had been monaurally deafened confirmed that the effects observed were not due to acoustic cross-over. Systematic manipulation of stimulus rate and intensity produced marked changes in the level of binaural interaction. Increases in stimulation rate from 10 to 100 clicks/s reduced binaural interaction for wave 4 and reversed the direction of binaural interaction for wave 5. Wave 6 was not generally present at rates above 10 clicks/s. Reduction of stimulus intensity reduced binaural interaction for wave 4. Binaural interaction effects were at adult levels in kittens of 20 days for waves 4 and 5. Wave 6 was not present until 30 days of age. These data suggest a possible model of the physiological processes producing binaural interaction which is based on occlusion as seen in other areas of the nervous system. In such a model, convergent input becomes more important in driving the generators of some ABR potentials when the system is stressed (as, for example, by increased stimulus rate), than it is when the system is not stressed.     

Effect of musical modelling on late auditory evoked potentials

Summary Late auditory evoked potentials were recorded in four subjects during musical tasks. A PDP 12 computer synchronized stimuli, which were produced by an integrated circuit, and recording with the help of a quartz time basis. The content of each experiment was different modelling of an ambiguous identical acoustic stimulus. In experiment 1, subjects had to model a 6-note melody according to the classic metric foot. In experiment 2, segmentation of an 8-note melody into 5- and 3- versus 3- and 5-tone motifs had to be performed. In experiment 1 an intra-individually reliable, but inter-individually variable neurophysiological correlate was detected during the heavy tone: (1) positivity, (2) negativity, (3) alpha blocking and (4) DC shift. Experiment 2 yielded an intra- and inter-individually reliable positive DC shift of about 4 V between the two motifs. Myogenic, ocular, dermal, respiratory or electrocardiographic artefacts were excluded in each case. The results indicate that conclusions from evoked potentials to musical perception might be possible and that possible modelling mechanisms with subsequent undesirable influence on recordings have to be considered in any kind of evoked potential experimental design.Dedicated to Prof. Dr. J. Peiffer