Arguissain Federico G, Biurrun Manresa José A, Mørch Carsten D, Andersen Ole K
Integrative Neuroscience group, Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction, Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajers Vej 7, Aalborg 9220, Denmark.
Integrative Neuroscience group, Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction, Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajers Vej 7, Aalborg 9220, Denmark.
J Neurosci Methods. 2015 Jan 30;240:1-12. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2014.10.011. Epub 2014 Oct 25.
To date, few studies have combined the simultaneous acquisition of nociceptive withdrawal reflexes (NWR) and somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs). In fact, it is unknown whether the combination of these two signals acquired simultaneously could provide additional information on somatosensory processing at spinal and supraspinal level compared to individual NWR and SEP signals.
By using the concept of mutual information (MI), it is possible to quantify the relation between electrical stimuli and simultaneous elicited electrophysiological responses in humans based on the estimated stimulus-response signal probability distributions.
All selected features from NWR and SEPs were informative in regard to the stimulus when considered individually. Specifically, the information carried by NWR features was significantly higher than the information contained in the SEP features (p<0.05). Moreover, the joint information carried by the combination of features showed an overall redundancy compared to the sum of the individual contributions. Comparison with existing methods MI can be used to quantify the information that single-trial NWR and SEP features convey, as well as the information carried jointly by NWR and SEPs. This is a model-free approach that considers linear and non-linear correlations at any order and is not constrained by parametric assumptions.
The current study introduces a novel approach that allows the quantification of the individual and joint information content of single-trial NWR and SEP features. This methodology could be used to decode and interpret spinal and supraspinal interaction in studies modulating the responsiveness of the nociceptive system.
迄今为止，很少有研究将伤害性退缩反射（NWR）和体感诱发电位（SEP）的同步采集结合起来。事实上，与单独的NWR和SEP信号相比，同时采集这两种信号是否能提供关于脊髓和脊髓上水平体感处理的额外信息尚不清楚。
通过使用互信息（MI）的概念，可以基于估计的刺激-反应信号概率分布来量化人类电刺激与同时诱发的电生理反应之间的关系。
单独考虑时，NWR和SEP的所有选定特征在关于刺激方面都是有信息价值的。具体而言，NWR特征所携带的信息显著高于SEP特征所包含的信息（p<0.05）。此外，与各单独贡献之和相比，特征组合所携带的联合信息显示出总体冗余。与现有方法的比较MI可用于量化单次试验NWR和SEP特征所传达的信息，以及NWR和SEP共同携带的信息。这是一种无模型方法，可考虑任意阶的线性和非线性相关性，且不受参数假设的约束。
当前研究引入了一种新方法，可对单次试验NWR和SEP特征的个体和联合信息内容进行量化。该方法可用于在调节伤害性系统反应性的研究中解码和解释脊髓和脊髓上的相互作用。
