Liu Yang, Dong Bo, Yang Jiajia, Ejima Yoshimichi, Wu Jinglong, Wu Qiong, Zhang Ming
Department of Psychology, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, China.
Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
Front Neuroinform. 2021 Jan 27;14:571369. doi: 10.3389/fninf.2020.571369. eCollection 2020.
Neuronal excitation and inhibition occur in the brain at the same time, and brain activation reflects changes in the sum of excitation and inhibition. This principle has been well-established in lower-level sensory systems, including vision and touch, based on animal studies. However, it is unclear how the somatosensory system processes the balance between excitation and inhibition. In the present ERP study, we modified the traditional spatial attention paradigm by adding double stimuli presentations at short intervals (i.e., 10, 30, and 100 ms). Seventeen subjects participated in the experiment. Five types of stimulation were used in the experiment: a single stimulus (one raised pin for 40 ms), standard stimulus (eight pins for 40 ms), and double stimuli presented at intervals of 10, 30, and 100 ms. The subjects were asked to attend to a particular finger and detect whether the standard stimulus was presented to that finger. The results showed a clear attention-related ERP component in the single stimulus condition, but the suppression components associated with the three interval conditions seemed to be dominant in somatosensory areas. In particular, we found the strongest suppression effect in the ISI-30 condition (interval of 30 ms) and that the suppression and enhancement effects seemed to be counterbalanced in both the ISI-10 and ISI-100 conditions (intervals of 10 and 100 ms, respectively). This type of processing may allow humans to easily discriminate between multiple stimuli on the same body part.
神经元的兴奋和抑制在大脑中同时发生，大脑激活反映了兴奋和抑制总和的变化。基于动物研究，这一原理在包括视觉和触觉在内的低级感觉系统中已得到充分证实。然而，尚不清楚体感系统如何处理兴奋与抑制之间的平衡。在本项事件相关电位（ERP）研究中，我们通过以短间隔（即10、30和100毫秒）添加双刺激呈现来修改传统的空间注意范式。17名受试者参与了实验。实验中使用了五种刺激类型：单个刺激（一个凸起的别针刺激40毫秒）、标准刺激（八个别针刺激40毫秒）以及间隔为10、30和100毫秒呈现的双刺激。要求受试者关注特定手指并检测标准刺激是否呈现给该手指。结果显示，在单个刺激条件下有明显的与注意相关的ERP成分，但与三种间隔条件相关的抑制成分在体感区域似乎占主导。特别是，我们发现在ISI-30条件（间隔30毫秒）下抑制作用最强，并且在ISI-10和ISI-100条件（分别为间隔10和100毫秒）下抑制和增强作用似乎相互平衡。这种处理方式可能使人类能够轻松区分同一身体部位上的多个刺激。
