title: Phase-locked theta activity evoked in patients with severe motor and intellectual disabilities upon hearing own names.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Severe motor and intellectual disability (SMID) patients cannot express their feelings with language. Understanding what they are thinking about or how they feel is thus difficult. This study focused on brain responses to hearing their own names to clarify the situation in these patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  We performed and analyzed electroencephalography (EEG) for six patients with SMID and eleven healthy subjects. All subjects were presented with auditory stimuli including calling the subject's own name (SON) and reading words. EEG was analyzed by time-frequency analysis, event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) to detect EEG power changes caused by EEG amplitude, and inter-trial coherence (ITC) to investigate phase-locked changes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  ERSP results from healthy subjects showed significant theta power increases as a specific response to SON. While we could not identify a similar pattern in the responses of patients with SMID, analysis of ITC revealed that theta phase-locked activity increased in response to SON not only in all healthy subjects, but also in four patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results indicate that theta phase-locked activity in some patients with SMID was strongly associated with SON, as in healthy subjects. Our study suggests the existence of specific neural markers that signal an attentional shift in patients upon hearing SON.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Systems Life Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. Electronic address: tamura@bie.inf.kyushu-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Kaori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tamura
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Systems Life Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
authors.forename: Chihiro
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Karube
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Systems Life Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
authors.forename: Takaaki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mizuba
authors.affiliation: Yanagawa Institute for Developmental Disabilities, International University of Health and Welfare Graduated School, Fukuoka, Japan.
authors.forename: Mayumi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Matsufuji
authors.affiliation: Yanagawa Institute for Developmental Disabilities, International University of Health and Welfare Graduated School, Fukuoka, Japan.
authors.forename: Sachio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takashima
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Systems Life Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
authors.forename: Keiji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Iramina
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D000068079:Motor Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D009275:Names; D013826:Theta Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Inter-trial coherence; Severe motor and intellectual disability; Subject’s own name; Theta phase-locked activity