Hemispheric differences in electrical and hemodynamic responses during hemifield visual stimulation with graded contrasts.

A multimodal neuroimaging technique based on electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used with horizontal hemifield visual stimuli with graded contrasts to investigate the retinotopic mapping more fully as well as to explore hemispheric differences in neuronal activity, the hemodynamic response, and the neurovascular coupling relationship in the visual cortex. The fNIRS results showed the expected activation over the contralateral hemisphere for both the left and right hemifield visual stimulations. However, the EEG results presented a paradoxical lateralization, with the maximal response located over the ipsilateral hemisphere but with the polarity inversed components located over the contralateral hemisphere. Our results suggest that the polarity inversion as well as the latency advantage over the contralateral hemisphere cause the amplitude of the VEP over the contralateral hemisphere to be smaller than that over the ipsilateral hemisphere. Both the neuronal and hemodynamic responses changed logarithmically with the level of contrast in the hemifield visual stimulations. Moreover, the amplitudes and latencies of the visual evoked potentials (VEPs) were linearly correlated with the hemodynamic responses despite differences in the slopes.