EEG alpha and gamma activity in congenitally blind subjects during mental rotation
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1
Yonsei University College of Medicine, Republic of Korea
In order to investigate different reflections of cognitive processing in EEG alpha and gamma activity between normal and congenitally blind subjects during mental rotation, EEG was recorded from 13 sighted controls and 10 congenitally blind subjects performing a mental rotation task. Subjects were instructed to mentally rotate a presented object on two virtual planes (vertical or horizontal) in either a clockwise or a counter-clockwise direction by 90 degrees, which was cued by two kinds of beeps. To investigate the amplitude and time course of oscillatory activity, the EEG signals were convolved with Morlet wavelets. We found that evoked gamma activity in the occipital area was enhanced when the subjects performed a counter-clockwise rotation, which occurred less frequently than a clockwise rotation, reflecting an oddball effect. Since we also observed opposite results in alpha activity, alpha and gamma activity seem to have functionally different underlying mechanisms in relation to cognitive processing. In addition, both a horizontal rotation and a counter-clockwise rotation yielded significantly enhanced total gamma activity in sighted subjects, but not in congenitally blind subjects. Presumably, different task-difficulties depending on the two performance planes were reflected in total gamma activity in sighted subjects. In contrast to prominent total alpha activity in sighted controls compared to congenitally blind subjects, there was no significant difference in total gamma activity between them. Accordingly, alpha activity seems to be more related to intact visual processing, whereas gamma activity appears to be relatively less subject to visual-related networks.
Conference:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Türkiye, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Brain Electrical Oscillations in Cognition
Citation:
Min
B and
Park
H
(2008). EEG alpha and gamma activity in congenitally blind subjects during mental rotation.
Conference Abstract:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.130
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Received:
05 Dec 2008;
Published Online:
05 Dec 2008.
*
Correspondence:
Byoung-Kyong Min, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea, min.bk@snu.ac.kr