Event-related potential changes due to early-onset Parkinson's disease in parkin (PARK2) gene mutation carriers and non-carriers.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate cognitive functions in non-demented patients with early-onset Parkinson's disease (PD), and to compare PARK2 gene mutation carriers and non-carriers by means of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). METHODS: The participants comprised patients with early-onset PD (EOPD) and healthy controls (HC). Patients with EOPD were divided into two groups as carriers of known pathogenic variants of PARK2 gene (EOPD-PC) and non-carriers of genes involved in familial PD (EOPD-NC). ERP data were collected during auditory oddball and visual continuous performance test (CPT). RESULTS: Both EOPD groups (EOPD-PC and EOPD-NC) displayed reduced and delayed P3 in response to oddball target and CPT NoGo. CPT Go P3 was reduced in EOPD-NC but not in EOPD-PC. Oddball target N1 was reduced and P2 was enhanced in both EOPD-PC and EOPD-NC. In both cognitive tasks, RTs were prolonged and accuracy was lower in EOPD-PC and EOPD-NC. CONCLUSIONS: We found several EOPD-related neurophysiologic changes, implying impairments in cognitive functions. Pairwise comparisons between EOPD-PC and EOPD-NC revealed no significant ERP marker. SIGNIFICANCE: In this study, the confounding effect of normative aging was somewhat excluded compared with many previous studies. In contrast with the many oddball studies in non-demented PD, we clearly observed reduced and prolonged P3 in early-onset PD. Our NoGo P3 findings also contribute to the limited ERP research concerning response inhibition.

Evaluation of cognitive performance in professional divers by means of event-related potentials and neuropsychology.

OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether professional air diving with no decompression illness causes any long-term changes in cognitive functions. METHODS: The all-male participants consisted of 18 healthy control (HC) volunteers and 32 divers. Divers were divided into two subgroups as moderate exposure group, Divers-I (DI) and extensive exposure group, Divers-II (DII). Participants were administered a comprehensive neuropsychological battery and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while they performed auditory oddball task and visual continuous performance test (CPT). RESULTS: P3 waves in oddball and CPT were significantly attenuated and peak latencies were prolonged in both diver groups compared with HC. Amplitude decrements in CPT P3 were graded with respect to level of diving exposure. Neuropsychologically, DII group displayed significantly poorer performance than HC and DI groups in measures of visuo-constructional and visual long-term memory tests. DI group performed better than HC group in some measures of planning ability. CONCLUSIONS: Most of the changes in neurophysiological measures and poorer neuropsychological performance were found in DII group, and this might be interpreted as a red flag for the reflection of the slowly progressing deleterious effects of silent bubbles in brain function. SIGNIFICANCE: This study reports impairments in certain neuropsychological measures and apparent neurophysiological markers pointing to slow cognitive decline referring to long-term effects of diving.

Time-frequency analysis of the event-related potentials associated with the Stroop test.

Multiple executive processes are suggested to be engaged at Stroop test, and time-frequency analysis is acknowledged to improve the informative utility of EEG in cognitive brain research. We aimed to investigate event-related oscillations associated with the Stroop test. EEG data was collected from 23 healthy volunteers while they performed a computer version of Stroop test. Both evoked (phase-locked) and total (phase-locked+non-phase-locked) oscillatory responses in the EEG were analyzed by wavelet transform. Data from the congruent (color-word matching) and incongruent stimuli (color-word non-matching) conditions are compared. In the incongruent condition, N450 wave was more negative and amplitude of the late slow wave was more positive. In the time-frequency plane, the fronto-central total theta amplitude (300-700 ms) was larger in the incongruent condition. The evoked delta (250-600 ms) was larger in the congruent condition particularly over parieto-occipital regions. The larger frontal theta response in the incongruent condition was associated with the detection of interference and inhibition of the response to task-irrelevant features, while the larger evoked delta in the congruent condition was suggestive of the easier decision process owing to congruency between the physical attribute and the verbal meaning of the stimuli. Furthermore, in the incongruent condition, amplitude of the occipital total alpha in the very late phase (700-900 ms) was smaller. This prolonged desynchronization in the alpha band could be reflecting augmentation of attentional filters in visual modality for the next stimulus. These multiple findings on EEG time-frequency plane provide improved description of the overlapping processes in Stroop test.

Cognitive evaluation of bupropion sustained release in heavy tobacco smokers using event-related potentials.

OBJECTIVE. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of bupropion sustained release (SR) on cognitive function, evaluated by event-related potentials (ERPs), in heavy tobacco smokers. MATERIAL AND METHODS. A total of 10 healthy volunteers (6 men and 4 women) were enrolled into the study. P3a and P3b components were evaluated by the novelty P3 paradigm. The ERP recordings were taken after the overnight abstaining and the first dose on the 1st day, on the 7th day, and 45th day of the therapy. RESULTS. The analysis of electrophysiological data in response to the standard stimuli in the parietal area after 7-day bupropion SR treatment revealed a significant increase in the P2 latency (P<0.05). With respect to the drug use × topography effect, an increasing trend of borderline significance in the P3b and P2 amplitudes against target events in the parietal area was observed (P=0.08 for both). A significant increase in the P3a amplitude in the parietocentral area was also observed on the seventh day of treatment (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS. The reduction of P3a in the frontal area may be due to the decreased distractibility of task-irrelevant novel events, which may mean an augmentation of focused attention to task-relevant target events. The increases in the P3b and P2 amplitudes for target events in the parietal area are very suggestive of this hypothesis, since these components reflect the response to task-relevant target events. Meanwhile, the increased P2 latency for standard events may reflect reduced attention resources for the processing of standard events due to increased attention resources allocated for task-relevant target events. Decreased distractibility and increased attention are believed to be caused by bupropion.

P3 response during short-term memory retrieval revisited by a spatio-temporal analysis.

The most reported event related potential (ERP) parameter during short-term memory retrieval has been P3 wave and the association has been built on the relation between P3 latency and reaction times. The aim of this study is to identify an ERP component that reflects the memory scanning process preceding the decision making stage which has been associated with the P3 peak. A spatiotemporal analysis was applied on the P3 and pre-P3 period of ERP responses obtained during the retrieval phase of the Sternberg paradigm with two memory load conditions (3 and 5 letters in the memory set). In the easy task condition with the fastest reaction times (positive probes of 3 letters condition), a single P3 was observed, whereas P3 was split into two peaks in responses to probe items of more demanding task conditions. The single P3 peak and the later components of the split P3 peaks displayed the typical P3 topography. On the other hand, the topographic mapping of the earlier peak of the split P3 wave and ascending part of the single P3 peak revealed a right parietal topography. The onset time of this earlier right lateralized topography was stable among all conditions but it persisted longer in the high memory load condition. We conclude that the right-lateralized positivity in the pre-P3 period reflects the memory scanning process followed by the P3 peak with midline parietal topography reflecting the decision making process.

P3 and delta band responses in visual oddball paradigm in schizophrenia.

Amplitude reduction of the oddball P3 wave is a well-replicated but non-specific finding of schizophrenia. The time-frequency analysis of single-trial ERP data allows to specify in a reliable manner whether the P3 reduction in schizophrenia is due to the decreased P3 response in single trials or due to the inter-trial variability in the timing of the response. Since the delta response most strongly contributes to the P3 amplitude, we focused to the low frequency range of the time-frequency transformed data. EEG was recorded from chronic schizophrenia patients and matched healthy controls during a simple visual oddball task. The wavelet transforms of the averaged ERP and the single trials were computed to investigate the amplitudes of the evoked (phase-locked) and total (phase-locked+non-phase-locked) delta (1-3 Hz) responses, respectively. Evoked delta activity and P3 amplitude to target stimuli were both reduced significantly in patients with schizophrenia, whereas no such difference was obtained for the total delta activity. The significant reduction of the evoked delta response and the absence of such a difference in the total delta response of schizophrenia patients reveals that the delta band response is weakly phase-locked to stimulus in schizophrenia. This result suggests that the reduced P3 amplitudes in the averaged ERPs of schizophrenia patients result from a temporal jitter in the activation of neural circuits engaged in P3 generation.

DRD4 and DAT1 polymorphisms modulate human gamma band responses.

Gamma oscillations (30-80 Hz) have been demonstrated to be important for perceptual and cognitive processes. Animal and in vitro studies have revealed possible underlying generation mechanisms of the gamma rhythm. However, little is known about the neurochemical modulation of these oscillations during human cognition. Schizophrenia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, which lead to failure of attentional modulation and working memory, introduce significant changes in gamma responses and have significant associations with genetic polymorphisms of dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4), dopamine transporter (DAT), and catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT). Therefore, the presence of direct relations between these polymorphisms and gamma oscillations was investigated in human subjects using an auditory target detection paradigm. The 7-repeat isoform of the DRD4 polymorphism that produces a subsensitive variant of the D4 receptor enhanced the auditory evoked and induced gamma responses to both standard and target stimuli. The 10/10 genotype of the DAT1 polymorphism, which reduces DAT expression and hence yields an increase in extracellular dopamine, specifically enhanced evoked gamma responses to target stimuli. The COMT polymorphism did not significantly change gamma responses. It seems plausible to assume that the modulation pattern of the evoked gamma response by DRD4 polymorphism relates to reduced inhibition via the D4 receptor, whereas the DAT1 effect is related to the target detection mechanism probably mediated by the D1 receptor.

Gamma amplitudes are coupled to theta phase in human EEG during visual perception.

Human subjects typically keep about seven items (plus or minus two) in short-term memory (STM). A theoretical neuronal model has been proposed to explain this phenomenon with physiological parameters of brain oscillations in the gamma and theta frequency range, i.e., roughly 30-80 and 4-8 Hz, respectively. In that model, STM capacity equals the number of gamma cycles (e.g., 25 ms for 40 Hz), which fit into one theta cycle (e.g., 166 ms for 6 Hz). The model is based on two assumptions: (1) theta activity should modulate gamma activity; and (2) the theta/gamma ratio should correlate with human STM capacity. The first assumption is supported by electrophysiological data showing that the amplitude of gamma oscillations is modulated by the phase of theta activity. However, so far, this has only been demonstrated for intracranial recordings. We analyzed human event-related EEG oscillations recorded in a memory experiment in which 13 subjects perceived known and unknown visual stimuli. The paradigm revealed event-related oscillations in the gamma range, which depended significantly on the phase of simultaneous theta activity. Our data are the first scalp-recorded human EEG recordings revealing a relationship between the gamma amplitude and the phase of theta oscillations, supporting the first assumption of the above-mentioned theory. Interestingly, the involved frequencies revealed a 7:1 ratio. However, this ratio does not necessarily determine human STM capacity. Since such a correlation was not explicitly tested in our paradigm, our data are not conclusive about the second assumption. Instead of theta phase modulating gamma amplitude, it is also conceivable that focal gamma activity needs to be downsampled to theta activity, before it can interact with more distant brain regions.

Alpha rhythm of the EEG modulates visual detection performance in humans.

The effects of the changes in the frequency spectrum of the electroencephalogram (EEG) on the perception of near-threshold visual stimuli and on the event-related potentials (ERPs) produced by these stimuli were investigated on 12 healthy volunteers. The stimulus intensity, at which each subject could detect 50% of the presented stimuli, was defined as the sensory threshold for that subject. Single ERP trials were separated into two groups: trials with detected and undetected stimuli. The ERPs and the average power spectra of the 1 s prestimulus periods were computed for both conditions. P300 amplitudes of the ERPs, and total power and relative band powers of the delta (0.5-4 Hz), theta (4-7.5 Hz), alpha (7.5-13 Hz), beta (13-30 Hz), and gamma (30-70 Hz) frequency bands of the prestimulus power spectra were measured. Between the two conditions, a specific difference was observed in the relative power of the alpha band, which was significantly lower before detected stimuli (p < 0.01) in line with significantly higher amplitudes of the ERPs (p < 0.001). These results show that short-lasting changes in brain's excitability state are reflected the relative alpha power of the EEG, which may explain significant variability in perceptual processes and ERP generation especially at boundary conditions such as sensory threshold.