The role of neuronal oscillations for subjective perception of tactile simultaneity
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1
Heinrich-Heine-University, Institute for Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Germany
To perceive two tactile events on different body locations as occurring simultaneously, the brain must adjust for differences between the two stimulations such as neural transmission time and sensory processing time. Psychophysical studies have shown that subjective perception of simultaneity of tactile events can vary considerably and differ from physical simultaneity. The neural mechanisms that underlie the subjective perception of simultaneity, however, are still unclear. In the present study, we investigated whether neuronal synchronization of oscillatory activity might act as a mechanism for subjective simultaneity. Subjects received tactile stimulations on the index fingers of the left and right hand with varying stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) and reported their subjective perception of simultaneity while brain activity was recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG). At SOAs of ± 30 ms, we found balanced proportions of simultaneous and non-simultaneous reports. We sorted these trials with identical stimulation for subjects’ experiences and analyzed them for oscillatory activity. Most significantly, subjective experience of simultaneity correlated with an increase of induced power in low frequencies (10-20 Hz) around onset of stimulation in sensors over somatosensory cortex contralateral to the side of the first stimulation. Furthermore, subjective simultaneity correlated with a decrease of induced power in the alpha-band (8-12 Hz) over parietal cortex. Our results indicate that induced modulations in the low frequency bands might influence subjective experience in the presence of constant physical stimulation.
Conference:
Biomag 2010 - 17th International Conference on Biomagnetism , Dubrovnik, Croatia, 28 Mar - 1 Apr, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Neurocognition and Functional Connectivity
Citation:
Lange
J,
Halacz
J and
Schnitzler
A
(2010). The role of neuronal oscillations for subjective perception of tactile simultaneity.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Biomag 2010 - 17th International Conference on Biomagnetism .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.06.00338
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Received:
06 Apr 2010;
Published Online:
06 Apr 2010.
*
Correspondence:
Joachim Lange, Heinrich-Heine-University, Institute for Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Düsseldorf, Germany, joachim.lange@med.uni-duesseldorf.de