An analytical method to separate modality‐specific and nonspecific sensory components of event‐related potentials

Several models have been developed to analyse cortical activity in response to salient events constituted by multiple sensory modalities. In particular, additive models compare event‐related potentials (ERPs) in response to stimuli from two or more concomitant sensory modalities with the ERPs evoked...

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Veröffentlicht in:The European journal of neuroscience 2022-10, Vol.56 (7), p.5090-5105
Hauptverfasser: Young, Elizabeth Loreley, Mista, Christian Ariel, Jure, Fabricio Ariel, Andersen, Ole Kæseler, Biurrun Manresa, José A.
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Several models have been developed to analyse cortical activity in response to salient events constituted by multiple sensory modalities. In particular, additive models compare event‐related potentials (ERPs) in response to stimuli from two or more concomitant sensory modalities with the ERPs evoked by unimodal stimuli, in order to study sensory interactions. In this approach, components that are not specific to a sensory modality are commonly disregarded, although they likely carry information about stimulus expectation and evaluation, attentional orientation and other cognitive processes. In this study, we present an analytical method to assess the contribution of modality‐specific and nonspecific components to the ERP. We developed an experimental setup that recorded ERPs in response to four stimulus types (visual, auditory, and two somatosensory modalities to test for stimulus specificity) in three different conditions (unimodal, bimodal and trimodal stimulation) and recorded the saliency of these stimuli relative to the sensory background. Stimuli were delivered in pairs, in order to study the effects of habituation. To this end, spatiotemporal features (peak amplitudes and latencies at different scalp locations) were analysed using linear mixed models. Results showed that saliency relative to the sensory background increased with the number of concomitant stimuli. We also observed that the spatiotemporal features of modality‐specific components derived from this method likely reflect the amount and type of sensory input. Furthermore, the nonspecific component reflected habituation occurring for the second stimulus in the pair. In conclusion, this method provides an alternative to study neural mechanisms of responses to multisensory stimulation. Four stimulation types (auditory, visual and electrical delivered through surface or pin electrodes) were used in the study (A). Twelve stimulation blocks were carried out, each of them containing 48 trials either of unimodal (A, V and EX) or multimodal stimuli (i.e., bimodal AV, EXA, EXV and trimodal EXAV). Each trial consisted of two stimuli separated by 1.5 s. Intertrial intervals varied randomly between 8 and 12 s (B). A 62‐channel EEG was recorded in response to the different stimulus combinations (C), and an average ERP waveform was computed. Using an analytical method based on the additive model, we extracted modality‐specific and nonspecific components (D).
ISSN:0953-816X
1460-9568
DOI:10.1111/ejn.15798