Perceived intensity of somatosensory cortical electrical stimulation

Fridman, Gene Y.; Blair, Hugh T.; Blaisdell, Aaron P.; Judy, Jack W.

doi:10.1007/s00221-010-2254-y

Cited by 51 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…This supports the hypothesis that electrical stimulation parameters are not perceived independently but rather jointly contribute to a unified perception of intensity (Fridman et al, 2010). This would seem to conflict with the classic experiments of Romo et al (Romo et al, 1998) who showed that periodic stimulation of the skin and electrical stimulation of quickly adapting neurons in area 3b were behaviourally indistinguishable (and therefore presumably perceptually equivalent) in non-human primates.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Direct electrical stimulation of the somatosensory cortex in humans using electrocorticography electrodes: a qualitative and quantitative report

et al. 2013

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Objective Recently, electrocorticography-based brain-computer interfaces have been successfully used to translate cortical activity into control signals for external devices. However, the utility of such devices would be greatly enhanced by somatosensory feedback. Direct stimulation of somatosensory cortex evokes sensory perceptions, and is thus a promising option for closing the loop. Before this can be implemented in humans it is necessary to evaluate how changes in stimulus parameters are perceived and the extent to which they can be discriminated. Approach Electrical stimulation was delivered to the somatosensory cortex of human subjects implanted with electrocorticography grids. Subjects were asked to discriminate between stimuli of different frequency and amplitude as well as to report the qualitative sensations elicited by the stimulation. Main Results In this study we show that in humans implanted with electrocorticography grids, variations in the amplitude or frequency of cortical electrical stimulation produce graded variations in percepts. Subjects were able to reliably distinguish between different stimuli. Significance These results indicate that direct cortical stimulation is a feasible option for sensory feedback with brain-computer interface devices.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Direct electrical stimulation of the somatosensory cortex in humans using electrocorticography electrodes: a qualitative and quantitative report

et al. 2013

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“…Additionally, there were slight variations in the lengths of the four electrodes used to make each electrode array, potentially resulting in slight depth variations. It should be noted that previous studies have also noted variations in thresholds across animals of a similar order of magnitude [33,47,48]. We also noted a small but nonsignificant decrease in response time with increasing stimulus strength with both symmetric and asymmetric stimuli (data not shown).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Behavioral and Electrophysiological Effects of Cortical Microstimulation Parameters

et al. 2013

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Electrical microstimulation has been widely used to artificially activate neural circuits on fast time scales. Despite the ubiquity of its use, little is known about precisely how it activates neural pathways. Current is typically delivered to neural tissue in a manner that provides a locally balanced injection of positive and negative charge, resulting in negligible net charge delivery to avoid the neurotoxic effects of charge accumulation. Modeling studies have suggested that the most common approach, using a temporally symmetric current pulse waveform as the base unit of stimulation, results in preferential activation of axons, causing diffuse activation of neurons relative to the stimulation site. Altering waveform shape and using an asymmetric current pulse waveform theoretically reverses this bias and preferentially activates cell bodies, providing increased specificity. In separate studies, measurements of downstream cortical activation from sub-cortical microstimulation are consistent with this hypothesis, as are recent measurements of behavioral detection threshold currents from cortical microstimulation. Here, we compared the behavioral and electrophysiological effects of symmetric vs. asymmetric current waveform shape in cortical microstimulation. Using a go/no-go behavioral task, we found that microstimulation waveform shape significantly shifts psychometric performance, where a larger current pulse was necessary when applying an asymmetric waveform to elicit the same behavioral response, across a large range of behaviorally relevant current amplitudes. Using voltage-sensitive dye imaging of cortex in anesthetized animals with simultaneous cortical microstimulation, we found that altering microstimulation waveform shape shifted the cortical activation in a manner that mirrored the behavioral results. Taken together, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that asymmetric stimulation preferentially activates cell bodies, albeit at a higher threshold, as compared to symmetric stimulation. These findings demonstrate the sensitivity of the pathway to varying electrical stimulation parameters and underscore the importance of designing electrical stimuli for optimal activation of neural circuits.

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“…There is a suggestion by Fridman et al that ICMS amplitude, pulse-width, and frequency all interact to contribute to a unitary perception of “perceived intensity” [46]. Therefore, one might argue that our monkeys discriminated the periodic and aperiodic pulse trains on the basis of their instantaneous peak intensities rather than their temporal patterns.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Virtual Active Touch Using Randomly Patterned Intracortical Microstimulation

O’Doherty

Lebedev

et al. 2012

IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabil. Eng.

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Intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) has promise as a means for delivering somatosensory feedback in neuroprosthetic systems. Various tactile sensations could be encoded by temporal, spatial, or spatiotemporal patterns of ICMS. However, the applicability of temporal patterns of ICMS to artificial tactile sensation during active exploration is unknown, as is the minimum discriminable difference between temporally modulated ICMS patterns. We trained rhesus monkeys in an active exploration task in which they discriminated periodic pulse-trains of ICMS (200 Hz bursts at a 10 Hz secondary frequency) from pulse trains with the same average pulse rate, but distorted periodicity (200 Hz bursts at a variable instantaneous secondary frequency). The statistics of the aperiodic pulse trains were drawn from a gamma distribution with mean inter-burst intervals equal to those of the periodic pulse trains. The monkeys distinguished periodic pulse trains from aperiodic pulse trains with coefficients of variation 0.25 or greater. Reconstruction of movement kinematics, extracted from the activity of neuronal populations recorded in the sensorimotor cortex concurrent with the delivery of ICMS feedback, improved when the recording intervals affected by ICMS artifacts were removed from analysis. These results add to the growing evidence that temporally patterned ICMS can be used to simulate a tactile sense for neuroprosthetic devices.

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Perceived intensity of somatosensory cortical electrical stimulation

Cited by 51 publications

References 35 publications

Direct electrical stimulation of the somatosensory cortex in humans using electrocorticography electrodes: a qualitative and quantitative report

Direct electrical stimulation of the somatosensory cortex in humans using electrocorticography electrodes: a qualitative and quantitative report

Behavioral and Electrophysiological Effects of Cortical Microstimulation Parameters

Virtual Active Touch Using Randomly Patterned Intracortical Microstimulation

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