PMID- 21749492
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20111207
LR  - 20110816
IS  - 1460-9568 (Electronic)
IS  - 0953-816X (Linking)
VI  - 34
IP  - 4
DP  - 2011 Aug
TI  - Cortical processing of near-threshold tactile stimuli in a paired-stimulus 
      paradigm--an MEG study.
PG  - 641-51
LID - 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2011.07770.x [doi]
AB  - In the present magnetoencephalography study, we applied a paired-stimulus 
      paradigm to study the weak cortical responses evoked by near-threshold tactile 
      prime stimuli by means of their attenuating effect on the cortical responses 
      evoked by subsequently applied above-threshold test stimuli. In stimulus pairs 
      with adequate interstimulus intervals (ISIs), the extent of test stimulus 
      response attenuation is related to the amplitude of prime stimulus responses, and 
      the duration of the attenuating effect indicates how long memory traces of a 
      prime stimulus reside in cortical areas. We hypothesized that the attenuation of 
      test stimulus responses, studied for ISIs of 30, 60 and 150 ms, would provide 
      insight into the temporal dynamics of near-threshold stimulus processing in 
      primary (SI) and secondary somatosensory cortex (SII), and reveal differences in 
      response amplitude due to conscious perception. Attenuation of test stimulus 
      responses in SI was observed for ISIs up to 60 ms, whereas in SII the effect 
      outlasted the ISI of 150 ms. Differences due to conscious perception of the 
      near-threshold stimuli were only observed in SII with stronger attenuation for 
      perceived than for missed near-threshold stimuli. Applying this indirect approach 
      to near-threshold stimulus processing, we could show that the extent and duration 
      of response attenuation is related to prime stimulus processing and differential 
      temporal and functional characteristics of near-threshold stimulus information 
      processing in SI and SII: transient processing of basic stimulus information not 
      sufficient for conscious perception in SI and long-lasting activations involving 
      conscious perception in SII.
CI  - (c) 2011 The Authors. European Journal of Neuroscience (c) 2011 Federation of 
      European Neuroscience Societies and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
FAU - Wuhle, Anja
AU  - Wuhle A
AD  - MEG Center, University of Tubingen, Tubingen, Germany. 
      anja.wuehle@med.uni-tuebingen.de
FAU - Preissl, Hubert
AU  - Preissl H
FAU - Braun, Christoph
AU  - Braun C
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20110712
PL  - France
TA  - Eur J Neurosci
JT  - The European journal of neuroscience
JID - 8918110
SB  - IM
MH  - Adult
MH  - Cerebral Cortex/*physiology
MH  - Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory/*physiology
MH  - Female
MH  - Humans
MH  - Male
MH  - Perception/*physiology
MH  - Somatosensory Cortex/*physiology
MH  - Touch/*physiology
MH  - Young Adult
EDAT- 2011/07/14 06:00
MHDA- 2011/12/13 00:00
CRDT- 2011/07/14 06:00
PHST- 2011/07/14 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2011/07/14 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2011/12/13 00:00 [medline]
AID - 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2011.07770.x [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Eur J Neurosci. 2011 Aug;34(4):641-51. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2011.07770.x. 
      Epub 2011 Jul 12.