The neural basis of the P300 potential. Focus on the time-course of the underlying cortical generators

The locations and time-courses of the neural generators of the event-related P300 potential have been well described using intracranial recordings. However, this invasive method is not adequate for usage in healthy volunteers or psychiatric patients and not all brain regions can be covered well with this approach. With functional MRI, a non-invasive method with high spatial resolution, most of these locations could be found again. However, the time-course of these activations can only be roughly determined with this method, even if an event-related fMRI design has been chosen. Therefore, we have now tried to analyse the time-course of the activations using EEG data providing a better time resolution. We have used Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (LORETA) in the analysis of P300 data (27 electrodes) of healthy volunteers (n = 50) in the time frame 230-480 ms and found mainly the same activations that have been described using intracranial recordings or fMRI, i. e. the inferior parietal lobe/temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), the supplementary motor cortex (SMA) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the superior temporal gyrus (STG), the insula and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In these selected regions, an analysis of the activation time-courses has been performed.