Stimulation of the rat somatosensory cortex at different frequencies and pulse widths

Functional MRI (fMRI) during electrical somatosensory stimulation of the rat forepaw is a widely used model to investigate the functional organization of the somatosensory cortex or to study the underlying mechanisms of the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response. In reality, somatosensory stimuli have complex timing relationships and are of long duration. However, by default electrical sensory stimulation seems to be performed at an extremely short pulse width (0.3 ms). As the pulse duration may alter the neuronal response, our aim was to investigate the influence of a much longer stimulus pulse width (10 ms) using BOLD fMRI during electrical forepaw stimulation. The optimal neuronal response was investigated by varying the stimulus frequency at a fixed pulse duration (10 ms) and amplitude (1 mA). In a parallel experiment we measured the neuronal response directly by recording the somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs). Quantification of the BOLD data revealed a shift in the optimal response frequencies to 8-10 Hz compared with 1 Hz at 0.3 ms. The amplitude of the recorded SEPs decreased with increasing stimulation frequency and did not display any correlation with the BOLD data. Nevertheless, the summated SEPs, which are a measure of the integrated neuronal activity as a function of time, displayed a similar response profile, with a similar maximum as observed by relative BOLD changes. This shift in optimal excitation frequencies might be related to the fact that an increased pulse width of an electrical stimulus alters the nature of the stimulation, generating also sensorimotor instead of merely somatosensory input. This may influence or alter the activated pathways, resulting in a shift in the optimal response profile.