title: Towards obtaining spatiotemporally precise responses to continuous sensory stimuli in humans: a general linear modeling approach to EEG.
abstract: Noninvasive investigation of human sensory processing with high temporal resolution typically involves repeatedly presenting discrete stimuli and extracting an average event-related response from scalp recorded neuroelectric or neuromagnetic signals. While this approach is and has been extremely useful, it suffers from two drawbacks: a lack of naturalness in terms of the stimulus and a lack of precision in terms of the cortical response generators. Here we show that a linear modeling approach that exploits functional specialization in sensory systems can be used to rapidly obtain spatiotemporally precise responses to complex sensory stimuli using electroencephalography (EEG). We demonstrate the method by example through the controlled modulation of the contrast and coherent motion of visual stimuli. Regressing the data against these modulation signals produces spatially focal, highly temporally resolved response measures that are suggestive of specific activation of visual areas V1 and V6, respectively, based on their onset latency, their topographic distribution and the estimated location of their sources. We discuss our approach by comparing it with fMRI/MRI informed source analysis methods and, in doing so, we provide novel information on the timing of coherent motion processing in human V6. Generalizing such an approach has the potential to facilitate the rapid, inexpensive spatiotemporal localization of higher perceptual functions in behaving humans.
authors.affiliation: Trinity Centre for Bioengineering and School of Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland; Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Nuno R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Gonçalves
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Whelan
authors.affiliation: Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland; The Sheryl and Daniel R. Tishman Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center, Departments of Pediatrics and Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, 1225 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.
authors.forename: John J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Foxe
authors.affiliation: Trinity Centre for Bioengineering and School of Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland; Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland. Electronic address: edlalor@tcd.ie.
authors.forename: Edmund C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Lalor
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods*; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012677:Sensation / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Dorsal stream; EEG; Impulse response; Motion; VEP; VESPA