Multiple spatial-frequency tuning of electrical responses from human visual cortex

Abstract

Human occipital potentials evoked by stimulation with a counterphase flickering grating were recorded by a digital narrowband filter technique. The data showed a surprising degree of narrow tuning to particular spatial frequencies in addition to the expected narrow temporal frequency tuning. At each temporal frequency, there could be two or more peaks of different spatial frequencies, each distinct from the whole field flicker response. Variations in this multiple spatial frequency tuning were investigated as a function of luminance, electrode location, and temporal frequency for several observers. The results are interpreted in terms of many stimulus-specific resonant neural circuits within the brain, and suggest that it is possible to make a highly detailed exploration of the responses of neural circuits to visual stimulation.

Photic driving in the electroencephalogram of children and adolescents: harmonic structure and relation to the resting state

“…This has been considered to reflect constitutional features of the EEG (4,6). On the other hand, some authors have found variable components of the reaction in photic driving, which are determined by the current functional state (5,35,37).…”

“…These oscillators were found to be very variable across a group of subjects, but in each individual, the frequencies of the peaks proved to be very stable over a long period of time (6). Other investigators also observed large interindividual variability and long-term individual stability of the driving reactions (4). Significantly, however, the resonance driving peaks not only coincided with the background peaks, such as those of alpha activity, but also appeared at the frequencies where no peaks were observed in the background EEG (6,8).…”

“…The hypothesis of the resonance nature of the driving response was suggested as early as the nineteen forties (3) and later was accepted and experimentally confirmed by many investigators (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10). On this basis, IPS has been used to test some basic neurophysiological mechanisms taking into account modern concepts of the organizing role of the bioelectrical rhythms in the brain (11,12).…”

“…On this basis, IPS has been used to test some basic neurophysiological mechanisms taking into account modern concepts of the organizing role of the bioelectrical rhythms in the brain (11,12). It is currently believed that the differentiated working of different neural circuits within the brain occurs at different specific frequencies, and the principle of resonance filtering of stimuli underlies the reactions to external stimulation and coding of information (4,7). The resonance properties of the EEG oscillators can be enhanced by IPS.…”

Steady-State Visual Evoked Potentials: Distributed Local Sources and Wave-Like Dynamics Are Sensitive to Flicker Frequency

“…Early human studies using EEG electrodes positioned over occipital cortex (Sperkeijse et al, 1977;Regan, 1977;Tyler et al, 1978;Regan, 1989), and local field potentials recorded within monkey visual cortex (Nakayama and Mackeben, 1982) demonstrated that steady-state responses recorded over visual cortex depend on the temporal frequency of visual input. The dependence of the magnitude of the steady-state response on the input frequency is characterized by local maxima in the response amplitude at the stimulation frequency in at least three different "resonance" bands.…”