Cortical oscillatory power changes during auditory oddball task revealed by spatially filtered magnetoencephalography
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Updated: Jun 26, 2026
Detecting Pre-Stimulus Source-Level Effects on Object Perception with Magnetoencephalography
Published on: July 26, 2019
Ryouhei Ishii1, Leonides Canuet, Anthony Herdman
1Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, D3 2-2 Yamada-oka, Suita, 565-0871 Osaka, Japan. ishii@psy.med.osaka-u.ac.jp
Objective:
To investigate the neural sources and associated changes in oscillatory activity involved in auditory attention and memory updating processing using spatially filtered magnetoencephalography.
Methods:
We recorded magnetic responses during an auditory oddball task in 12 normal subjects. Synthetic aperture magnetometry (SAM)-permutation analysis was used to visualize the multiple brain regions associated with event-related magnetic fields (ERFs), and event-related oscillations during target detection processing.
Results:
SAM-permutation results showed the topographical distribution of N1m over the bilateral primary auditory cortex. Post-stimulus delta (1.5-4 Hz) activity sources, likely related to the P300 slow-waveform, were distributed over the right frontocentral and parietal regions. Source locations of theta (4-8 Hz) and alpha (8-13 Hz) event-related synchronization (ERS) were identified over the dorsolateral and medial prefrontal cortex. We visualized bilateral central-Rolandic suppresions for mu (8-15 Hz), beta (15-30 Hz), and low-gamma (30-60 Hz) activities, more dominant in the hemisphere contralateral to the moving hand (button-pressing in response to target stimuli).
Conclusions:
Prefrontal theta and alpha ERS, and frontocentral-parietal delta ERS are functionally engaged in auditory attention and memory updating process.
Significance:
Spatially filtered MEG is valuable for detection and source localization of task-related changes in the ongoing oscillatory activity during oddball tasks.
