Sensory gating, inhibition control and gamma oscillations in the human somatosensory cortex

Abstract

Inhibiting the responses to irrelevant stimuli is an essential component of human cognitive function. Pre-attentive auditory sensory gating (SG), an attenuated neural activation to the second identical stimulus, has been found to be related to the performance of higher-hierarchical brain function. However, it remains unclear whether other cortical regions, such as somatosensory cortex, also possess similar characteristics, or if such a relationship is modality-specific. This study used magnetoencephalography to record neuromagnetic responses to paired-pulse electrical stimulation to median nerve in 22 healthy participants. Somatosensory SG ratio and cortical brain oscillations were obtained and compared with the behavioral performance of inhibition control, as evaluated by somatosensory and auditory Go-Nogo tasks. The results showed that somatosensory P35m SG ratio correlated with behavioral performance of inhibition control. Such relationship was also established in relation to the auditory Go-Nogo task. Finally, a higher frequency value of evoked gamma oscillations was found to relate to a better somatosensory SG ability. In conclusion, our data provided an empirical link between automatic cortical inhibition and behavioral performance of attentive inhibition control. This study invites further research on the relationships among gamma oscillations, neurophysiological indices, and behavioral performance in clinical populations in terms of SG or cortical inhibition.

Auditory sensory gating in patients with bipolar disorders: A meta-analysis

“…SG, referring to the brain's ability to automatically filter out redundant sensory stimuli, is considered as a protective mechanism to prevent a flooding of irrelevant information to the higher cortical centers (Boutros and Belger, 1999). Although SG occurs at the early stage of information processing, its influences manifest across the whole cognitive operations (Wan et al, 2008;Cheng et al, 2016). In the event-related potential (ERP) studies, auditory P50 gating ratio (Stimulus 2 over Stimulus 1, S2/S1) is typically assessed by the paired-click paradigm.…”

Effects of observing normal and abnormal goal‐directed hand movements on somatosensory cortical activation

“…Electrical stimulation was delivered to the right median nerve through an electrical stimulator (Konstant‐Strom Stimulator, Germany). Each pulse was 0.2 ms constant‐current square‐wave with an interstimulus interval (ISI) of 1.8–2.2 s. In this study, the stimulus intensity was set at 20% above the motor threshold to elicit a visible twitch of the abductor pollicis brevis muscles (Cheng & Lin, ; Cheng et al ., 2016a, 2017b). During the whole experiment, all the subjects received repetitive non‐painful electrical stimulation at the wrist while performing the tasks, that is Resting and Manipulation in the Experimental I, and Normal and Abnormal in the Experimental II.…”

Methodological considerations for a better somatosensory gating paradigm: The impact of the inter-stimulus interval

“…The ratio approach is the most common as it is less affected by individual differences in response amplitude across both stimulations. Importantly, regardless of the tested modality or clinical population, aberrations in SG are thought to reflect alterations in functional inhibitory processing ( Cheng et al, 2016b ; Cromwell et al, 2008 ; Gao et al, 2013 ; Spooner et al, 2018 , 2019 ), making the application of such protocols in human neurophysiology extremely desirable.…”

“…While the overall paired-pulse design of SG experiments has been in place for decades, there are a host of other experimental parameters that must be considered during task design, such as stimulus intensity, time between the individual stimuli, and time between the pairs. For example, it is exceedingly common for SG protocols to present the identical stimuli in rapid succession separated by a fixed, relatively short inter-stimulus interval (e.g., 500 ms), while the pairs of identical stimuli are separated by larger temporal windows (e.g., 5000 ms) that can be randomly jittered to eliminate anticipatory responses ( Cheng et al, 2016b ; Kurz et al, 2017 ; Spooner et al, 2019 ; Wiesman et al, 2017 ). These pairs of stimuli are always presented at identical intensities within the same person, to ease the interpretation of any experimental effects, and these intensities are often determined by individual-specific thresholds.…”