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Ergebnisse 3 Einträge
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Patients with schizophrenia have often been described as insensitive to nociceptive signals, but objective evidence is sparse. We address this question by combining subjective behavioral and objective neurochemical and neurophysiological measures. The present study involved 21 stabilized and mildly symptomatic patients with schizophrenia and 21 control subjects. We applied electrical stimulations below the pain threshold and assessed sensations of pain and unpleasantness with rating scales, and Somatosensory Evoked Potentials (SEPs/EEG). We also measured attention, two neurochemical stress indices (ACTH/cortisol), and subjective VEPs/EEG responses to visual emotional stimuli. Our results revealed that, subjectively, patients' evaluations do not differ from controls. However, the amplitude of EEG evoked potentials was greater in patients than controls as early as 50 ms after electrical stimulations and beyond one second after visual processing of emotional pictures. Such responses could not be linked to the stress induced by the stimulations, since stress hormone levels were stable. Nor was there a difference between patients and controls in respect of attention performance and tactile sensitivity. Taken together, all indices measured in patients in our study were either heightened or equivalent relative to healthy volunteers.
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Ambiguous figures induce sudden transitions between rivaling percepts. We investigated electroencephalogram frequency modulations of accompanying change-related de- and rebinding processes. Presenting the stimuli discontinously, we synchronized perceptual reversals with stimulus onset, which served as a time reference for averaging. The resultant gain in temporal resolution revealed a sequence of time-frequency correlates of the reversal process. Most conspicuous was a transient right-hemispheric gamma modulation preceding endogenous reversals by at least 200 ms. No such modulation occurred with exogenously induced reversals of unambiguous stimulus variants. Post-onset components were delayed for ambiguous compared to unambiguous stimuli. The time course of oscillatory activity differed in several respects from predictions based on binding-related hypotheses. The gamma modulation preceding endogenous reversals may indicate an unstable brain state, ready to switch.
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Normally we experience the visual world as stable. Ambiguous figures provide a fascinating exception: On prolonged inspection, the "Necker cube" undergoes a sudden, unavoidable reversal of its perceived front-back orientation. What happens in the brain when spontaneously switching between these equally likely interpretations? Does neural processing differ between an endogenously perceived reversal of a physically unchanged ambiguous stimulus and an exogenously caused reversal of an unambiguous stimulus? A refined EEG paradigm to measure such endogenous events uncovered an early electrophysiological correlate of this spontaneous reversal, a negativity beginning at 160 ms. Comparing across nine electrode locations suggests that this component originates in early visual areas. An EEG component of similar shape and scalp distribution, but 50 ms earlier, was evoked by an external reversal of unambiguous figures. Perceptual disambiguation seems to be accomplished by the same structures that represent objects per se, and to occur early in the visual stream. This suggests that low-level mechanisms play a crucial role in resolving perceptual ambiguity.
Erkunden
Team
Eintragsart
Sprache
- Englisch (3)
Thema
- *Electroencephalography
- Adult (3)
- Brain Mapping (1)
- Contingent Negative Variation/*physiology (1)
- Data Interpretation, Statistical (1)
- Depth Perception/*physiology (1)
- Discrimination Learning/physiology (1)
- Electric Stimulation (1)
- *Emotions (1)
- *Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory (1)
- Evoked Potentials, Visual (1)
- Evoked Potentials, Visual/physiology (1)
- Female (3)
- Fourier Analysis (1)
- Functional Laterality/physiology (1)
- Humans (3)
- Male (3)
- Middle Aged (1)
- Optical Illusions/*physiology (1)
- Orientation/*physiology (1)
- Pain/*physiopathology (1)
- Pattern Recognition, Visual/*physiology (1)
- Perceptual Closure/*physiology (1)
- Photic Stimulation (1)
- Reversal Learning/physiology (1)
- Schizophrenia/*physiopathology (1)
- Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted (1)
- Stress, Psychological/*physiopathology (1)
- Vision, Binocular/physiology (1)
- Visual Cortex/physiology (1)
- Visual Perception/*physiology (1)
- Young Adult (1)