An early transient 40 Hz activity discriminates a following pro-saccade from a no-move and anti-saccade choice

Exp Brain Res. 2001 Aug;139(3):287-96. doi: 10.1007/s002210100765.

Abstract

We studied the oscillatory activity of the scalp-recorded EEG in healthy humans performing a task that required a particular eye-movement response choice according to the shape of a visual target. We observed a significant stimulus-aligned activity at the 40 Hz frequency band 100 ms after the appearance of the target only when that target was the end point for the subsequent eye movement (pro-saccade). This activity was most prominent over the central-parietal area of the right hemisphere. When the target indicated a movement to the opposite direction (anti-saccade) or indicated that no movement was required (no-move), this 40 Hz activity was nearly absent. This difference in activity between the pro-saccade and the other two tasks was evident in the single subject ERPs for four of the six subjects studied. In contrast, the movement-aligned 40 Hz activity for the pro-saccade and anti-saccade was almost identical. We speculate that this early stimulus-aligned 40 Hz activity might reflect a fast transformation of a visual stimulus to a motor response (eye movement) that can be performed for the pro-saccade task where stimulus-response compatibility is strong compared to the anti-saccade and no-move tasks. The movement-aligned 40 Hz activity might be related to the motor response preparation per se. We conclude that this task specific transient oscillatory activity could be used as a probe in the study of the temporal dynamics of visuomotor transformations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Analysis of Variance
  • Brain / physiology*
  • Discrimination, Psychological / physiology*
  • Electroencephalography* / methods
  • Evoked Potentials / physiology
  • Eye Movements / physiology
  • Humans
  • Photic Stimulation / methods
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology
  • Reaction Time / physiology
  • Saccades / physiology*
  • Statistics, Nonparametric