Caffeine enhances frontal relative negativity of slow brain potentials in a task-free experimental setup

State dependent effects on brain processes are difficult to study due to the task-related confounds. Even in simple task environments external stimuli inevitably interact with dynamically changing states of the brain. Psychopharmacological manipulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation can be used independently of variations in subject's experimental task and environmental stimulation. Our aim was to show the investigative potential of combining these two methods for studying the effects of the state of the brain on the dynamics of task-free evoked brain activity. Caffeine was used for inducing higher arousal state and transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to evoke widespread bioelectrical responses of the brain. Occipitally delivered magnetic pulses caused increased global negativity of the brain potentials, but no speed-up of brain potentials when caffeine was administered. The relative negativization effect was most clearly expressed in slow potentials and as measured from frontal and parietal electrodes. This study shows how the causal effects of brain states on neural processes can be studied without the confounding influence of experimental task and stimuli.