LAUSR

Introduction Human brain operates with oscillatory activity in different frequency bands. For example, mu rhythm is well known as an idling rhythm observed in the central area related to motor function. We observed some rhythmic pattern in the averaged waveforms in the CCEP investigation (called “oscillatory response” here), which is originally a method to trace connectivity by single electrical pulse stimulation. We report on the frequency and distribution of the oscillatory responses in CCEP. Methods Subjects are 5 intractable epilepsy patients who underwent chronic implantation of subdural electrodes for presurgical evaluation. Written informed consents were obtained from all subjects. Single-pulse stimuli (0.3 ms, 8–10 mA, alternating polarity, 30 × 2 trials) were applied through two adjacent electrodes (52.8 ± 15.3 stimulus sites per patient). CCEP was recorded from subdural electrodes (105.2 ± 31.8 electrodes per patient) placed on the lateral and medial aspect of the cerebral hemisphere. Lateral fronto-parietal area was covered in all subjects. An oscillatory response in CCEP was detected by visual inspection on the averaged waveform according to the following criteria; (1) it has at least two pairs of peak and trough spaced equally, (2) it can be overlapped with other evoked responses (typical N1/ N2 response). If more than one rhythms with different frequencies were observed in the same electrode, we counted the largest one in amplitude. Results Totally, 2362 oscillatory responses (7.9%) were detected in 29891 observations in 5 subjects, including 443 alpha-band responses (7.5–13.5 Hz), 312 beta-band responses (13.5–30 Hz) and 1505 theta-band responses (3.5–7.5 Hz). Theta rhythm was observed predominantly in the temporal lobe including the basal temporal area (the occurrence rate was 12.45%). Alpha rhythm was observed more often in the parietal lobe including the postcentral gyrus (the occurrence rate was 4.57%), while beta rhythm was often observed around precentral gyrus (the occurrence rate was 1.98%). The frequency of the resting rhythmic activity was equal to that of oscillatory CCEP response in the alpha band in the postcentral gyrus in all subjects. This alpha activity was considered as mu rhythm in all the 3 subjects who performed a hand grasping task. Conclusion Single pulse electrical stimulation evoked oscillatory CCEP responses preferentially in the temporal lobe and the perirolandic area. The correspondence of frequency between the oscillatory response and mu rhythm implies the phase resetting of the physiological oscillation by exogenous input. This unique oscillatory CCEP may help to map these functionally important cortical regions.