Orienting response and frontal midline theta activity: a somatosensory spectral perturbation study

Brain electric activity in the theta frequency band has been associated with the encoding of new, and the retrieving of previously stored, information. We studied the time course of stimulus-to-stimulus changes of theta activity under repetitive somatosensory stimulation.

Twelve healthy subjects participated in the study. Repetitive electric stimuli, grouped into 48 stimulus trains, were applied to the left index finger. The stimulus trains contained 27 stimuli (0.9 Hz, 2.5 times sensory threshold). Each stimulus train of 30 s was followed by a stimulus-free break of 30 s. This stimulation paradigm allowed the separate estimation of effects for each position of the stimulus in the train and an analysis of stimulus-to-stimulus changes. Multichannel EEG recordings allowed a topographic analysis of the event-related spectral perturbation effects in the theta frequency band. The brain electric novelty response triggered by the stimulus train onset was analyzed by 3 methods: (1) event-related potentials; (2) event-related power spectra for the investigation of spectral perturbation effects on theta activity; and (3) an approach to break down the stimulus-induced theta activity into phase-locked activity and effects on the spontaneous, ongoing theta activity using digital filtering.

The main findings are a frontal midline activation in the theta band with the beginning of the stimulus train, which habituates during the subsequent stimulation cycles, as well as evidence that distinct effects of the first stimulus on the ongoing, non-phase-locked, theta activity exist.