Jamison Keith W, Roy Abhrajeet V, He Sheng, Engel Stephen A, He Bin
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota, United States.
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, United States.
J Neurosci Methods. 2015 Mar 30;243:53-62. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2015.01.024. Epub 2015 Jan 30.
Binocular rivalry is a perceptual phenomenon that arises when two incompatible images are presented separately, one to each eye, and the observer experiences involuntary perceptual alternations between the two images. If the two images are flickering at two distinct frequencies, electroencephalography (EEG) can be used to track the frequency-tagged steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) driven by each image as they compete for awareness, providing an objective measure of the subjective perceptual state. This spontaneous alternation in perceptual dominance is believed to be driven by neural processes across widespread regions in the brain, but the real-time mechanisms of these processes remain unclear.
The goal of this study was to determine the feasibility of investigating binocular rivalry using a simultaneous EEG-fMRI approach in order to leverage the high temporal resolution of EEG with the high spatial resolution of fMRI.
We have developed novel techniques for artifact removal and signal optimization for the rivalry-related SSVEP data collected simultaneously during fMRI.
Our methods address several significant technical challenges of recording SSVEP data in the noisy fMRI environment, and enabled us to successfully reconstruct SSVEP signatures of rivalry in a group of healthy human subjects.
Further development and application of these techniques will enable more comprehensive integration of EEG and fMRI data collected simultaneously and could have significant implications for EEG-fMRI studies of brain activity in general.
双眼竞争是一种感知现象，当两个不相容的图像分别呈现给每只眼睛时，观察者会在这两个图像之间经历不由自主的感知交替。如果这两个图像以两种不同的频率闪烁，脑电图（EEG）可用于追踪每个图像驱动的频率标记稳态视觉诱发电位（SSVEP），因为它们争夺意识，从而提供主观感知状态的客观测量。这种感知优势的自发交替被认为是由大脑中广泛区域的神经过程驱动的，但这些过程的实时机制仍不清楚。
本研究的目的是确定使用同步脑电图-功能磁共振成像（EEG-fMRI）方法研究双眼竞争的可行性，以便利用EEG的高时间分辨率和fMRI的高空间分辨率。
我们开发了用于去除伪迹和优化与竞争相关的SSVEP数据信号的新技术；这些数据是在功能磁共振成像期间同时收集的。
我们的方法解决了在嘈杂的功能磁共振成像环境中记录SSVEP数据的几个重大技术挑战，并使我们能够成功重建一组健康人类受试者的双眼竞争SSVEP特征。
这些技术的进一步发展和应用将使同时收集的脑电图和功能磁共振成像数据能够更全面地整合，并且总体上可能对大脑活动的脑电图-功能磁共振成像研究产生重大影响。
