Metacontrast and evoked potentials: a reappraisal

Stimulation of the parafoveal retina may give rise to visual evoked responses generated in large part by stray light impinging upon the fovea. This effect appears to account for the absence of changes in the visual evoked response to parafoveal stimulation during metacontrast suppression. When the central retina is directly stimulated, the spatiotemporal interactions associated with brightness suppression during metacontrast may be readily demonstrated in a late component of the visual evoked response.     

Averaged evoked responses in vigilance and discrimination: a reassessment

With the use of monopolar recordings for averaged evoked responses, detected signals in a vigilance task are associated with a late positive component which is absent for undetected signals as well as nonsignals. Bipolar recordings obscure the late positive component associated with detected signals. The data suggest that the late positive component represents cerebral processes associated with evaluation of unpredictable changes in stimulation.     

Effects of visual form on the evoked response

The average visual evoked potentials elicited from relaxed human subjects are different for a blank visual field and one containing a geometric form, are different for different geometric forms of equal area, are similar for versions of the same geometric fortn of unequal area, and are different for two printed words equated for total letter area. These findings suggest that the waveform of evoked responses is not determined solely by the set of peripheral receptors which is stimulated, but it also reflects the perceptual content of the stimulus.     

Self-stimulation alters human sensory brain responses

Human electrocortical potentials evoked by self-administered auditory and visual stimuli manifest much smaller amplitude and faster poststimulus timing than do average brain responses evoked by identical machine-delivered stimuli. Auditory evoked potentials show this "self-stimulation effect" to a greater degree than do visual responses. For visual evoked potentials, the effect appears greater at the vertex association area than over the occipital cortex. Individual differences in the magnitude of the "self-stimutlation effect" relate to level of intelligence.     

Arousal effects on evoked activity in a "nonsensory" system

Responses from motor cortex evoked by cerebellar stimulation have been recorded with chronically implanted electrodes from cats in different states of arousal. The response, which in the waking cat consists of a short latency biphasic component followed by one or more slower waves, was attenuated, or abolished completely, in association with electroencephalographic and behavioral signs of decreased arousal. In contrast, responses in primary somatosensory cortex evoked by stimulating the bulbar trigeminal nucleus were enhanced during periods of decreased alertness.     

Tobacco and evoked potential

Significant changes were found in two indices of the averaged visual evoked potentials in nine smokers after 12 and 36 hours of abstinence and after resumption of smoking. There was a decrease of the amplitude envelope accompanying withdrawal and an increase with resumption of smoking. These changes are consistent with the contention that tobacco increases arousal. Amplitude changes were found in a specific component of the evoked potential occurring between 100 and 125 milliseconds after the onset of the flash. The latter changes suggest the possibility that smoking selectively enhances the perceptiont of weak stimuli.     

Oxygen tension changes evoked in the brain by visual stimulation

Localized changes in oxygen tension were recorded with platinum cathodes placed in the lateral geniculate nucleus in both anesthetized and awake cats. The amplitude of the responses increased with increasing stimulus intensity, but decreased with increasing flash rate. Both increases and decreases in cathode current were produced by steady illumination. The characteristics of the responses suggest that the responses reflect localized variations in blood flow, produced in turn by changes evoked in the tonic neural activity of the lateral geniculate nucleus.     

Corticotropin release: inhibition by intrahypothalamic implantation of atropine

Anterior hypothalamic implantations of crystalline atropine markedly inhibit the adrenocortical responses evoked by surgical stress, ether anesthesia, or intravenolus injection of arginine vasopressin. Similar implants in nearby regions of the brain or sham implantations in the same region were ineffective. The data suggest that the hypothalamic control of pituitary corticotropin may have a cholinergic component.     

Auditory evoked potentials during speech perception

Neural responses evoked by the same binaural speech signal were recorded from ten right-handed subjects during two auditory identification tasks. One task required analysis of acoustic parameters important for making a linguistic distinction, while the other task required analysis of an acoustic parameter which provides no linguistic information at the phoneme level. In the time interval between stimulus onset and the subjects' identification responses, evoked potentials from the two tasks were significantly different over the left hemisphere but identical over the right hemisphere. These results indicate that different neural events occur in the left hemisphere during analysis of linguistic versus nonlinguistic parameters of the same acoustic signal.     

Hemispheric asymmetry of electrocortical responses to speech stimuli

In a group of normal adults, averaged cortical evoked responses to natural speech stimuli were recorded from scalp electrodes placed symmetrically over the two cerebral hemispheres at frontal, Rolandic, and temporoparietal leads. The amplitude of the most prominent component was consistently larger in left hemisphere derivations, with the major hemisphere difference observed in the temporoparietal records. These electrophysiological measures may be sensitive indicators of hemispheric specialization of function.     

Information delivery and the sensory evoked potential

The waveform of evoked responses recorded from human scalp is not determined solely by the physical eliciting stimulus, but also varies as a function of the effective information provided by the stimulus. There is a positive component whose latency is determined by the point in time at which ambiguity is reduced, and whose shape and amplitude are influenced by whether it is the presence or absence of an external event which delivers the information.     

极端干旱区湖岸柽柳径向生长对水环境演变的响应

该文利用黑河下游内蒙古西居延海3道湖岸堤上的湖岸林柽柳树轮年表,研究了柽柳树轮生长对水环境演变的生态响应. 对3个年表进行的主成分分析结果表明,第一主成分的贡献率达到53.3％,它反映了3道湖岸堤上柽柳轮宽生长对同一环境因子的共同响应;第二主成分的贡献率达到30.7％,它反映了3道湖岸堤上柽柳轮宽生长对第一主成分以外因素的响应. 相关分析表明,第一主成分与生长季节（5—8月）湖泊水位波动呈显著正相关关系,第二主成分与区域年降水量呈显著正相关关系,与地下水位波动呈微弱负相关关系. 上述结果表明,在地下水位可以满足湖岸柽柳生长条件下,地下水位的变化对柽柳轮宽生长作用占绝对优势.反之,天然降水将对维持柽柳的基本生存具有重要的贡献. 柽柳径向生长的生态响应模式不仅体现在3道湖岸堤的空间尺度上,同样体现在同一样点年表在时间序列上的变化. 通过石羊河、黑河和塔里木河3个干旱区内陆河流域柽柳生态水位对比,认为非地带性植被——柽柳的最大生态水位差异是由于区域降水差异造成的.      

LONG-TERM STABILITY OF VISUALLY EVOKED POTENTIALS IN MAN

Although the variability of averaged evoked potentials as recorded from cortex in man has been a constant source of concern among investigators, the degree of variability has not received systematic treatment. The authors have accordingly undertaken an exploratory study of reliable differences that may occur in the first 300 msec of the averaged evoked response over long periods of time. Computer analysis of visually evoked responses in seven subjects over several weeks indicated stability of the response of each individual, with reliable intra-individual correlations. Inter-individual differences, however, were large. The evoked responses of different individuals were found to be unique.     

Effects of rectilinear acceleration and optokinetic and caloric stimulations in space

During the flight of Spacelab 1 the crew performed a number of experiments to explore changes in vestibular function and visual-vestibular interactions on exposure to microgravity. Measurements were made on the threshold for detection of linear oscillation, vestibulo-ocular reflexes elicited by angular and linear movements, oculomotor and posture responses to optokinetic stimulations, and responses to caloric stimulation. Tests were also conducted on the ground, during the 4 months before and on days 1 to 6 after flight. The most significant result was that caloric mystagmus of the same direction as on the earth could also be evoked in the weightless environment.     

Evoked potentials: three-dimensional display

Procedures are described for displaying large numbers of evoked potentials. A photographic superposition of average evoked responses, with the concurrent modulation of the brightness of each trace, yields a display having the appearance of a three-dimensional surface formed from hundreds of average responses.     

Evoked potential correlates of expected stimulus intensity

The electrophysiological responses to a flash of medium intensity have different wave shapes in trials in which the occurrence of bright stimuli or dim stimuli is expected. When a bright or dim stimulus is signaled, the potentials evoked by the medium stimulus resemble the responses evoked by a real bright or dim flash.     

Visual evoked response correlates of unconscious mental processes

Average evoked responses and accompanying free associations elicited by subthreshold visual stimuli were studied to determine if a differential discrimination between two stimuli would be reflected in either or both of these responses. The results indicate that the effects of subliminal perception are encoded in the average evoked response and also influence the content of free associations.     

Electrical signs of selective attention in the human brain

Auditory evoked potentials were recorded from the vertex of subjects who listened selectively to a series of tone pips in one ear and ignored concurrent tone pips in the other ear. The negative component of the evoked potential peaking at 80 to 110 milliseconds was substantially larger for the attended tones. This negative component indexed a stimulus set mode of selective attention toward the tone pips in one ear. A late positive component peaking at 250 to 400 milliseconds reflected the response set established to recognize infrequent, higher pitched tone pips in the attended series.     

八达岭地区主要森林类型土壤脲酶活性研究

通过对八达岭地区9种森林类型土壤脲酶活性及理化性质的研究,结果表明:土壤脲酶活性有从表层到底层垂直递减规律,其含量受到树种的影响;有机质、全氮和碱解氮是影响脲酶活性的主要因素;由主成分分析得出的第一主成分可综合反映土壤保肥供肥的信息,方差贡献率达44.86%;由此可见土壤脲酶活性是评价森林土壤肥力的一项重要的生物活性指标。     

Spontaneous cortical activity reveals hallmarks of an optimal internal model of the environment

The brain maintains internal models of its environment to interpret sensory inputs and to prepare actions. Although behavioral studies have demonstrated that these internal models are optimally adapted to the statistics of the environment, the neural underpinning of this adaptation is unknown. Using a Bayesian model of sensory cortical processing, we related stimulus-evoked and spontaneous neural activities to inferences and prior expectations in an internal model and predicted that they should match if the model is statistically optimal. To test this prediction, we analyzed visual cortical activity of awake ferrets during development. Similarity between spontaneous and evoked activities increased with age and was specific to responses evoked by natural scenes. This demonstrates the progressive adaptation of internal models to the statistics of natural stimuli at the neural level.