Abstract
The aim of the present study was to propose and test an experimental design enabling to synchronize simultaneously both signal-and movement-related processes in a simple sensorimotor task. Seventeen healthy volunteers were asked to flex their right wrist after the presentation of an auditory signal (tone burst of 1kHz, 200 ms duration; intersignal interval between 7–9 s). In total, 2179 collected records were divided according to the same length of the signal-movement interval into 38 time groups and the average curve for each time group was calculated. The event-related potential from all these time groups exhibited two prominent negative waves over the frontocentral region. The first one, with a mean peak latency of 110 ms, exhibited characteristics of the N1 component of cortical auditory evoked potential. Analysis of data concerning the second negative wave pointed to its dependence on both sensory and motor underlying processes. The increasing slope of the wave represented its sensory part. It started in all the time groups approximately at the same time points and was not influenced by variations of S-R interval. An estimate of its peak latency was approximately 400 ms. In time groups with S-R intervals shorter than 300 ms this N400 component was located on the time axis after the movement, i.e. when the instructed task had already been accomplished. The next portion of the second negative wave, i.e. the slow increase of amplitude to its peak value and the following decrease of the wave, exhibited a clear-cut dependence on movement.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Becker, W., & Kristeva, A. (1980). Cerebral potentials prior to various force deployments. In: H.H. Kornhuber & L. Deecke (Eds.), Motivation, Motor and Sensory Processes of the Brain: Electrical Potentials, Behavior and Clinical Use, pp. 189–194. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Bender, S., Oelkers-Ax, R., Resch, F., & Weisbrod, M. (2006). Frontal lobe involvement in the processing of meaningful auditory stimuli develops during childhood and adolescence. Neuroimage, 33, 759–773.
Birbaumer, N., Elbert, T., Canavan, A.G.M., & Rockstroh, B. (1990). Slow Potentials of the Cerebral Cortex and Behavior. Physiological Reviews, 70, 1–42.
Brown, C.M., & Hagoort, P. (1993). The processing nature of the N400: Evidence from masked priming. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 5, 34–44.
Deecke, L., & Lang, W. (1996). Generation of movement related potentials and fields in the supplementary sensorimotor area and the primary motor area. In: H.O. Lueders (Ed.), Supplementary Sensorimotor Area — Advances in Neurology, pp. 127–146. Lippincott/Raven Publishers.
Fietzek, U.M., Heinen, F., Berweck, S., Maute, S., Hufschmidt, A., Schulte-Monting, J., Lucking, C.H., & Korinthenberg R (2000). Development of the corticospinal system and hand motor function: central conduction times and motor performance tests. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 42, 220–227.
Kutas, M., & King, J.W. (1995). The potentials for basic sentence processing: Differentiating integrative processes. In: T. Inui & J. McClelland (Eds.), Attention and performance XVI: Information and communication, pp. 501–546.
Kukleta, M., Buser, P., Rektor, I., & Lamarche, M. (1996). Readiness Potentials Related to Self-Initiated Movement and to Movement Preceded by Time Estimation: A Comparison. Physiological Research, 45, 235–239.
Kukleta, M., Rektor, I., & Lamarche, M. (1996). Readiness potential preceding mental counting. Homeostasis in Health and Disease, 37, 277–278.
Kukleta, M., & Lamarche, M. (1996). The impact of decision process upon scalp recorded premovement potential. Cognitive Brain Research, 4, 225–229.
Kukleta, M., & Lamarche, M. (1998). The early component of the premovement readiness potential and its behavioral determinants. Cognitive Brain Research, 6, 273–278.
Kukleta, M., & Lamarche, M. (2000).Components of the slow cortical potential induced by externally triggered wrist flexion. Homeostasis in Health and Disease, 40, 93–95.
Kukleta, M., Buser, P., Turak, B., & Louvel, J. (2006). Prefrontal depth-recorded potentials during processing a salient auditory stimulus. Homeostasis, 44, 157–159.
Lang, W., Hoelinger, P., Eghker, A., & Lindinger, G. (1994). Functional Localization of Motor Processes in the Primary and Supplementary Motor Areas. Journal of Clinical Neurophys iology, 11, 397–419.
Osterhout, L., & Holcomb, P.J. (1992). Event-related brain potentials elicited by syntactic anomaly. Journal of Memory and Language, 31, 785–806.
Weinberg, H., Walter, W.G., Cooper, R., & Aldridge, V. (1974). Emitted cerebral events. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 36, 449–456.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Kukleta, M., Lamarche, M. & Louvel, J. Component N400 Can Be Demonstrated In The Event-related Potential From a Simple Auditory Reaction Time Paradigm. Act Nerv Super 51, 1–5 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03379919
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03379919