Gao Xiang, Cao Hongbao, Ming Dong, Qi Hongzhi, Wang Xuemin, Wang Xiaolu, Chen Runge, Zhou Peng
School of Precision Instruments and Opto-Electronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
Unit on Statistical Genomics, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda 20852, USA.
Int J Psychophysiol. 2014 Dec;94(3):399-406. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.10.010. Epub 2014 Oct 31.
When two coherent sounds with nearly similar frequencies are presented to each ear respectively with stereo headphones, the brain integrates the two signals and produces a sensation of a third sound called binaural beat (BB). Although earlier studies showed that BB could influence behavior and cognition, common agreement on the mechanism of BB has not been reached yet. In this work, we employed Relative Power (RP), Phase Locking Value (PLV) and Cross-Mutual Information (CMI) to track EEG changes during BB stimulations. EEG signals were acquired from 13 healthy subjects. Five-minute BBs with four different frequencies were tested: delta band (1 Hz), theta band (5 Hz), alpha band (10 Hz) and beta band (20 Hz). We observed RP increase in theta and alpha bands and decrease in beta band during delta and alpha BB stimulations. RP decreased in beta band during theta BB, while RP decreased in theta band during beta BB. However, no clear brainwave entrainment effect was identified. Connectivity changes were detected following the variation of RP during BB stimulations. Our observation supports the hypothesis that BBs could affect functional brain connectivity, suggesting that the mechanism of BB-brain interaction is worth further study.
当使用立体声耳机分别向每只耳朵呈现两个频率相近的相干声音时，大脑会整合这两个信号，并产生一种被称为双耳节拍（BB）的第三种声音的感觉。尽管早期研究表明BB可以影响行为和认知，但对于BB的机制尚未达成共识。在这项工作中，我们采用相对功率（RP）、锁相值（PLV）和交叉互信息（CMI）来跟踪BB刺激期间的脑电图（EEG）变化。EEG信号取自13名健康受试者。测试了四种不同频率的五分钟BB：δ波段（1Hz）、θ波段（5Hz）、α波段（10Hz）和β波段（20Hz）。我们观察到在δ和α BB刺激期间，θ和α波段的RP增加，β波段的RP减少。在θ BB期间，β波段的RP降低，而在β BB期间，θ波段的RP降低。然而，未发现明显的脑电波夹带效应。在BB刺激期间，随着RP的变化检测到了连接性变化。我们的观察结果支持BB可以影响功能性脑连接的假设，这表明BB与大脑相互作用的机制值得进一步研究。
