Event-related desynchronization of frontal-midline theta rhythm during preconscious auditory oddball processing

The goal of this study was to explore the frontal-midline theta rhythm (Fm theta) generation mechanism employing event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) analysis in relation to task-irrelevant external stimuli. A dual paradigm was employed: a videogame and the simultaneous presentation of passive auditory oddball stimuli. We analyzed the data concerning ERD/ERS using both Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) and wavelet transform (WT). In the FFT data, during the periods with appearance of Fm theta, apparent ERD of the theta band was observed at Fz and Cz. ERD when Fm theta was present was much more prominent than when Fm theta was absent. In the WT data, as in the FFT data, ERD was seen again, but in this case the ERD was preceded by ERS during both the periods with and without Fm theta. Furthermore, the WT analysis indicated that ERD was followed by ERS during the periods without Fm theta. However, during Fm theta, no apparent ERS following ERD was seen. In our study, Fm theta was desynchronized by the auditory stimuli that were independent of the video game task used to evoke the Fm theta. The ERD of Fm theta might be reflecting the mechanism of "positive suppression" to process external auditory stimuli automatically and preventing attentional resources from being unnecessarily allocated to those stimuli. Another possibility is that Fm theta induced by our dual paradigm may reflect information processing modeled by multi-item working memory requirements for playing the videogame and the simultaneous auditory processing using a memory trace. ERS in the WT data without Fm theta might indicate further processing of the auditory information free from "positive suppression" control reflected by Fm theta.