A method for identifying short-latency human cognitive potentials in single trials by scalp mapping

• Published in: Neuroscience letters Vol. 168; no. 1; pp. 123 - 125
• Main Authors: Tomberg, Claude, Desmedt, John E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Shannon Elsevier Ireland Ltd 28.02.1994; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Mapping; Cognition; Cognitive potential; Electric Stimulation; Electroencephalogram; Electroencephalography; Electrophysiology; Fingers - innervation; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Scalp - innervation; Selective attention; Single trial; Time Factors; Cognitive potential; Selective attention; Single trial; Electroencephalogram; Brain mapping; Human; Cartography; Central nervous system; Information processing; Electrophysiology; Cognition; Electroencephalography; Event evoked potential; Brain (vertebrata)
• ISSN: 0304-3940; 1872-7972
• DOI: 10.1016/0304-3940(94)90431-6

Studies of scalp-recorded brain event-related potentials in humans currently depend on the electronic averaging of many responses to the stimulus. In non-averaged single responses, it is sometimes possible to see late components such as the so-called P300, but not the shorter latency components that are much smaller and masked in background noise. We tried to identify short-latency cognitive potentials evoked by finger stimulation by comparing single trial responses that are concomitantly recorded at the contralateral and ipsilateral parietal scalp respectively. We developed a single trial topographic mapping method that proved important for assessing whether any left-right difference at short latency indeed reflected genuine cognitive electrogeneses. These results make it possible to analyze on a trial-by-trial basis the short latency cognitive processing in somatic perception.