Dataset Information

Beyond the Peak - Tactile Temporal Discrimination Does Not Correlate with Individual Peak Frequencies in Somatosensory Cortex.

ABSTRACT: The human sensory systems constantly receive input from different stimuli. Whether these stimuli are integrated into a coherent percept or segregated and perceived as separate events, is critically determined by the temporal distance of the stimuli. This temporal distance has prompted the concept of temporal integration windows or perceptual cycles. Although this concept has gained considerable support, the neuronal correlates are still discussed. Studies suggested that neuronal oscillations might provide a neuronal basis for such perceptual cycles, i.e., the cycle lengths of alpha oscillations in visual cortex and beta oscillations in somatosensory cortex might determine the length of perceptual cycles. Specifically, recent studies reported that the peak frequency (the frequency with the highest spectral power) of alpha oscillations in visual cortex correlates with subjects' ability to discriminate two visual stimuli. In the present study, we investigated whether peak frequencies in somatosensory cortex might serve as the correlate of perceptual cycles in tactile discrimination. Despite several different approaches, we were unable to find a significant correlation between individual peak frequencies in the alpha- and beta-band and individual discrimination abilities. In addition, analysis of Bayes factor provided evidence that peak frequencies and discrimination thresholds are unrelated. The results suggest that perceptual cycles in the somatosensory domain are not necessarily to be found in the peak frequency, but in other frequencies. We argue that studies based solely on analysis of peak frequencies might thus miss relevant information.

SUBMITTER: Baumgarten TJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5361566 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Beyond the Peak - Tactile Temporal Discrimination Does Not Correlate with Individual Peak Frequencies in Somatosensory Cortex.

Baumgarten Thomas J TJ Schnitzler Alfons A Lange Joachim J

Frontiers in psychology 20170322

The human sensory systems constantly receive input from different stimuli. Whether these stimuli are integrated into a coherent percept or segregated and perceived as separate events, is critically determined by the temporal distance of the stimuli. This temporal distance has prompted the concept of temporal integration windows or perceptual cycles. Although this concept has gained considerable support, the neuronal correlates are still discussed. Studies suggested that neuronal oscillations mig ...[more]

PMID: 28382013

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Project description:The sensory system constantly receives stimuli from the external world. To discriminate two stimuli correctly as two temporally distinct events, the temporal distance or stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the two stimuli has to exceed a specific threshold. If the SOA between two stimuli is shorter than this specific threshold, the two stimuli will be perceptually fused and perceived as one single stimulus. Patients with hepatic encephalopathy (HE) are known to show manifold perceptual impairments, including slowed visual temporal discrimination abilities as measured by the critical flicker frequency (CFF). Here, we hypothesized that HE patients are also impaired in their tactile temporal discrimination abilities and, thus, require a longer SOA between two tactile stimuli to perceive the stimuli as two temporally distinct events. To test this hypothesis, patients with varying grades of HE and age-matched healthy individuals performed a tactile temporal discrimination task. All participants received two tactile stimuli with varying SOA applied to their left index finger and reported how many distinct stimuli they perceived ("1" vs. "2"). HE patients needed a significantly longer SOA (138.0 ± 11.3 ms) between two tactile stimuli to perceive the stimuli as two temporally distinct events than healthy controls (78.6 ± 13.1 ms; p < 0.01). In addition, we found that the temporal discrimination ability in the tactile modality correlated positively with the temporal discrimination ability in the visual domain across all participants (i.e., negative correlation between tactile SOA and visual CFF: r = -0.37, p = 0.033). Our findings provide evidence that temporal tactile perception is substantially impaired in HE patients. In addition, the results suggest that tactile and visual discrimination abilities are affected in HE in parallel. This finding might argue for a common underlying pathophysiological mechanism. We argue that the known global slowing of neuronal oscillations in HE might represent such a common mechanism.

Dataset Information

Beyond the Peak - Tactile Temporal Discrimination Does Not Correlate with Individual Peak Frequencies in Somatosensory Cortex.

Publications

Beyond the Peak - Tactile Temporal Discrimination Does Not Correlate with Individual Peak Frequencies in Somatosensory Cortex.

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