title: Modulation of flash stimulation intensity and frequency: effects on visual evoked potentials and oscillatory potentials recorded in awake, freely moving mice.
abstract: Visual evoked potentials (VEP) responses to flash stimulation at nine intensities, from 0.611 to 945.6 cd/m(2)*s, and two frequencies (0.2 and 1 Hz) were recorded and oscillatory potentials (OPs) extracted after digital 50-Hz high pass filtering in unanaesthetized unrestrained mice. Both VEP and OPs morphology were replicable for all conditions and were similar to values reported in the literature. In particular OPs spectral analysis showed that the main frequency component remained stable at 66-77 Hz, for both stimulation frequencies, although it displayed an increase in amplitude, as a function of stimulus intensity. OPs amplitude at 1 Hz versus 0.2 Hz stimulus frequency was higher after taking into account the different noise contributions in the two conditions. Root mean square values calculated at selected time windows, revealed that, at 1 Hz, the main contribution to OPs occurs at the onset of the response (14-27 ms) while, at 0.2 Hz, the higher RMS was recorded later (42-56 ms). This difference accounts for the longer duration of the oscillatory event in the 0.2-Hz condition and suggests that oscillatory activity, modulated and carried along the visual pathway, is recorded at the cortical electrode after further elaboration at the cortical/subcortical level, depending on stimulus properties.
authors.affiliation: Istituto Superiore di Sanita', Viale Regina Elena 299, 00161, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Luisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lopez
authors.forename: Adriana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brusa
authors.forename: Antonello
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fadda
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Loizzo
authors.forename: Alfredo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Martinangeli
authors.forename: Walter G
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Sannita
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Loizzo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D004567:Electrodes, Implanted; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000528:radiation effects*; D004596:Electroretinography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000187:drug effects*; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012160:Retina / Q000502:physiology; D014851:Wakefulness / Q000502:physiology