On the synchrony of steady state visual evoked potentials and oscillatory burst events

In this paper, we investigate the large-scale synchrony of EEG oscillatory bursts, during stimulation by a flickering square of light. Whereas most studies focus on averaged raw EEG responses, this study considers oscillatory events within EEG of single trials, which leads to various new insights. We recorded EEG signals before, during and after stimulation by a flickering square of light in medium (16 Hz) and high frequency (32 Hz) ranges. Similar oscillatory bursts, to those observed in spontaneous EEG, can be found in single-trial synchrony of steady state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP). These bursts are extracted from the EEG of single trials using bump modeling. Stochastic event synchrony method is applied to those events, which quantifies synchronies of oscillatory bursts on a large-scale basis. Those oscillatory patterns have a significantly higher degree of co-occurrence during SSVEP, uncorrelated with ongoing signal synchrony. It means that EEG oscillatory patterns are presumably an outcome of brain activity, rather than a mere side effect of ongoing EEG. They undergo a consistent reorganization during visual stimulation, preferentially along the visual pathway, depending on magno or parvo stimulations. Flickering stimuli may induce some cognitive side-effects depending on the stimulation frequency.