Electrocorticographic activity during perception and imagination of sounds

Chloe Huetz (1, 2) , Tomislav Milekovi? (1, 2) , Tonio Ball (1, 3) , Andreas Schulzebonhage (1, 3) , Ad Aertsen (1, 2) , Carsten Mehring (1, 2)

1 Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience
2 Fakultät für Biologie = Faculty of Biology [Freiburg]
3 Epilepsy Center

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) aim at restoring lost motor functions of paralysed patients by using neuronal activity to control an external effector, like a computer, a robotic arm or a hand/arm prosthesis. Electrocorticography (ECoG), a recording technique using electrodes placed directly on the surface of the brain, provides neuronal signals at a higher spatial resolution than EEG by less invasive means than needed for single-unit/local field potential recordings. Using this technique, we investigated whether signals from the human Superior Temporal Lobe might serve as alternative BCI control signals in situations where the motor cortex is not applicable. ECoG activity of two epileptic patients was recorded during perception and imagination of several auditory stimuli. Our results show (i) that perception of different auditory stimuli induces a strong gamma increase over several electrodes, (ii) that this activity differs for different stimuli, and (iii) that auditory imagination produces significant increase of gamma activity over some electrodes. The latter gamma increase suggests that auditory imagination can be used to learn the modulation of brain activity for ECoG-based-BCI control.

Mots clés: Brain-computer interfaces; Neural Prostheses; Data analysis

Domaines: Neurosciences [q-bio.NC]; Neurosciences

Chloe Huetz, Tomislav Milekovi?, Tonio Ball, Andreas Schulzebonhage, Ad Aertsen, et al.. Electrocorticographic activity during perception and imagination of sounds. Deuxième conférence française de Neurosciences Computationnelles, "Neurocomp08", Oct 2008, Marseille, France. ⟨hal-00331623⟩