High gamma frequency oscillatory activity dissociates attention from intention in the human premotor cortex

Abstract

The premotor cortex is well known for its role in motor planning. In addition, recent studies have shown that it is also involved in nonmotor functions such as attention and memory, a notion derived from both animal neurophysiology and human functional imaging. The present study is an attempt to bridge the gap between these experimental techniques in the human brain, using a task initially designed to dissociate attention from intention in the monkey, and recently adapted for a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study [Simon, S.R., Meunier, M., Piettre, L., Berardi, A.M., Segebarth, C.M., Boussaoud, D. (2002). Task-related changes in cortical synchronization are spatially coincident with the hemodynamic response. Neuroimage, 16,. Intracranial EEG was recorded from the cortical regions preferentially active in the spatial attention and/or working memory task and those involved in motor intention. The results show that, among the different intracranial EEG responses, only the high gamma frequency (60 -200 Hz) oscillatory activity both dissociates attention/ memory from motor intention and spatially colocalizes with the fMRIidentified premotor substrates of these two functions. This finding provides electrophysiological confirmation that the human premotor cortex is involved in spatial attention and/or working memory. Additionally, it provides timely support to the idea that high gamma frequency oscillations are involved in the cascade of neural processes underlying the hemodynamic responses measured with fMRI [Logothetis, N.K., Pauls, J., Augath, M., Trinath, T. and Oeltermann, A. (2001). Neurophysiological investigation of the basis of the fMRI signal. Nature, 412,, and suggests a functional selectivity of the gamma oscillations that could be critical for future EEG investigations, whether experimental or clinical. D

Signal quality of simultaneously recorded invasive and non-invasive EEG

“…Next to their clinical importance, invasive recordings offer unique opportunities for electrophysiological investigations of human brain function with high spatial and temporal accuracy. An increasing number of studies have recently investigated motor Brovelli et al, 2005;Crone et al, 1998;Rektor, 2000;Szurhaj et al, 2006), sensory (Crone et al, 2001a;Edwards et al, 2005;Steinschneider et al, 2005), and cognitive (Canolty et al, 2006;Crone et al, 2001b;Ray et al, 2008;Sederberg et al, 2007;Sinai et al, 2005) systems using invasive EEG data. Furthermore, ECoG recordings have been proposed as a technology for brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) for neuronal motor prostheses in paralyzed patients (Ball et al, 2009;Leuthardt et al, 2004;Mehring et al, 2004;Pistohl et al, 2008;Schalk et al, 2007).…”

Neuroelectromagnetic Correlates of Perceptual Closure Processes

“…Human electroencephalography (EEG) studies provided evidence that oscillatory activity in the gamma band is correlated with the perception of coherent objects (Keil et al, 1999;Rodriguez et al, 1999;Gruber and Müller, 2005;Martinovic et al, 2008). Most EEG gamma-band studies have focused on lower gamma-band frequencies (Ͻ60 Hz); however, recent magnetoencephalography (MEG) and intracranial EEG studies have shown that oscillations in the high-frequency gamma band (Ͼ60 Hz) are reliable markers of cortical activity during a variety of cognitive tasks (Crone et al, 2001;Kaiser et al, 2004;Brovelli et al, 2005;Lachaux et al, 2005;Hoogenboom et al, 2006;Vidal et al, 2006;Guggisberg et al, 2007;Siegel et al, 2007).…”

Parieto-frontal gamma band activity during the perceptual emergence of speech forms

“…Recent iEEG studies have put a strong emphasis on gamma band activations in particular, in association with a wide range of cognitive processes, including memory (Fell et al, 2001;Howard et al, 2003;Mainy et al, 2007), visual attention and perception (Brovelli et al, 2005;Lachaux et al, 2000Lachaux et al, , 2005Tallon-Baudry et al, 2005;Tanji et al, 2005), audition (Bidet-Caulet et al, 2003;Edwards et al, 2005), somatosensory and motor processes Crone, Sinai and Korzeniewska, 2006;Lachaux et al, 2005;Aoki et al, 1999;Pfurtscheller et al, 2003;Szurhaj et al, 2005), and language . Importantly, in all those studies, gamma band activity was observed only in very specific brain regions, dependant on the tasks, and in good agreement with the functional networks revealed by fMRI .…”