Somervail, R;
Zhang, F;
Novembre, G;
Bufacchi, RJ;
Guo, Y;
Crepaldi, M;
Hu, L;
(2020)
Waves of Change: Brain Sensitivity to Differential, not Absolute, Stimulus Intensity is Conserved Across Humans and Rats.
Cereb Cortex
, Article bhaa267. 10.1093/cercor/bhaa267.
(In press).
Preview |
Text
bhaa267.pdf - Published Version Download (3MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Living in rapidly changing environments has shaped the mammalian brain toward high sensitivity to abrupt and intense sensory events-often signaling threats or affordances requiring swift reactions. Unsurprisingly, such events elicit a widespread electrocortical response (the vertex potential, VP), likely related to the preparation of appropriate behavioral reactions. Although the VP magnitude is largely determined by stimulus intensity, the relative contribution of the differential and absolute components of intensity remains unknown. Here, we dissociated the effects of these two components. We systematically varied the size of abrupt intensity increases embedded within continuous stimulation at different absolute intensities, while recording brain activity in humans (with scalp electroencephalography) and rats (with epidural electrocorticography). We obtained three main results. 1) VP magnitude largely depends on differential, and not absolute, stimulus intensity. This result held true, 2) for both auditory and somatosensory stimuli, indicating that sensitivity to differential intensity is supramodal, and 3) in both humans and rats, suggesting that sensitivity to abrupt intensity differentials is phylogenetically well-conserved. Altogether, the current results show that these large electrocortical responses are most sensitive to the detection of sensory changes that more likely signal the sudden appearance of novel objects or events in the environment.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Waves of Change: Brain Sensitivity to Differential, not Absolute, Stimulus Intensity is Conserved Across Humans and Rats |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/cercor/bhaa267 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaa267 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | behavioral relevance, electrocorticography (ECoG), electroencephalography (EEG), multispecies investigation, saliency-detection |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Neuro, Physiology and Pharmacology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10113638 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
