Search results for "Electrophysiology"
showing 10 items of 538 documents
Improvement and generalization of arm motor performance through motor imagery practice
2005
This study compares the improvement and generalization of arm motor performance after physical or mental training in a motor task requiring a speed-accuracy tradeoff. During the pre- and post-training sessions, 40 subjects pointed with their right arm as accurately and as fast as possible toward targets placed in the frontal plane. Arm movements were performed in two different workspaces called right and left paths. During the training sessions, which included only the right path, subjects were divided into four training groups (n = 10): (i) the physical group, subjects overtly performed the task; (ii) the mental group, subjects imagined themselves performing the task; (iii) the active cont…
Does habituation depend on cortical inhibition? Results of a rTMS study in healthy subjects
2010
Habituation, i.e. the decremental response to repeated sensorial stimulation, is studied in humans through evoked potential stimulation. Mechanisms underlying habituation are not yet cleared, even if inhibitory circuits are supposed to play an important role. Light deprivation (LD) increases visual cortical excitability likely through down-regulation of GABA circuits. We previously found that high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (hf-rTMS) can revert these facilitatory effects likely restoring the activity of inhibitory circuits. Here, we studied the effects of LD and rTMS on habituation of visual evoked potentials (VEPs). The hypothesis was that if the inhibitory circ…
Alteration of Neuromuscular Function After a Prolonged Road Cycling Race
2003
The aim of this study was to characterize neuromuscular fatigue in knee extensor muscles after a prolonged cycling exercise. During the two days preceding a 140-km race (mean +/- SD duration: 278.2 +/- 24.9 min) and 15 to 30 min after, maximal percutaneous electrical stimulations were applied to the femoral nerve of 11 trained cyclists. Electrically evoked superimposed twitches and trains of 6 stimulations were delivered during isometric maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) to determine maximal voluntary activation (% VA). Knee extensors MVC decreased with fatigue from 158.2 +/- 29.6 to 144.2 +/- 30.0 Nm (p < 0.01), but no central activation failure was detected after the race. The average r…
Alterations of neuromuscular function after an ultramarathon.
2002
Neuromuscular fatigue of the knee extensor (KE) and plantar flexor (PF) muscles was characterized after a 65-km ultramarathon race in nine well-trained runners by stimulating the femoral and tibial nerves, respectively. One week before and immediately after the ultramarathon, maximal twitches were elicited from the relaxed KE and PF. Electrically evoked superimposed twitches of the KE were also elicited during maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) to determine maximal voluntary activation. MVC and maximal voluntary activation decreased significantly after the ultramarathon (−30.2 ± 18.0% and −27.7 ± 13.0%, respectively; P < 0.001). Surprisingly, peak twitch increased after the ultramara…
Isometric muscle contractions after double pulse stimulation. comparison of healthy subjects and patients with myotonic dystrophy.
1996
Isometric contractions of the adductor pollicis muscle were studied in healthy subjects and patients with myotonic dystrophy after single and double stimuli of the ulnar nerve using a wide range of interstimulus intervals (ISI, 0.4-180 ms). In healthy subjects, the force contributed by a second stimulus was greater than the single twitch force being maximal (mean + 140%) at 12-ms ISI. In myotonic dystrophy, the force contributed by the second stimulus was (relative to a reduced twitch amplitude) increased (mean + 204%) with a maximum at 4.8-ms ISI. An abnormal increase of force was only recorded if the single twitch force was clearly reduced. The absolute refractory period of muscle contrac…
Spectral analysis of P300 generation in depression and schizophrenia.
1997
In the past it was reported in several studies that both depressive and schizophrenic patients exhibit reduced P300 amplitudes compared to healthy controls. In order to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of spectral P300 generation, we analysed P300 responses in depression and schizophrenia by a frequency based approach. Herefore, the amplification (poststimulus/prestimulus) of spectral power in different frequency bands was evaluated for non-target and target epochs. Generally, we found that P300 responses are accompanied by a pronounced frequency amplification in the delta and theta range. For the depressive patients we detected only under target condition a statistically significant red…
Effect of exhausting stretch-shortening cycle exercise on the time course of mechanical behaviour in the drop jump: possible role of muscle damage.
1999
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of stretch-shortening-cycle-induced muscle damage on the time course of mechanical behaviour in the drop jump. Ten healthy male subjects performed submaximal stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) exercise on a special sledge apparatus. Exhaustion occurred on average within 3 min. A drop jump (DJ) test from a 50-cm height was performed before and immediately after the sledge exercise as well as 2 h, 2 days and 4 days later. The fatigue exercise showed relatively high blood lactate concentration [12.5 (SD 2.6) mmol · 1−1] and an increase of serum creatine kinase (CK) activity delayed by 2 days [540 (SD 407) U · 1−1]. The initial decline …
Habituation and Sensitization Processes in Depressive Disorders
1999
The aim of the present study was to investigate further into habituation and sensitization processes in depressive disorders. The depressive subjects were 27 outpatients. All of them were diagnosed according to DSM-III-R criteria. Controls were 27 normal subjects. The amplitudes of electrodermal responses and the basal levels were recorded during a stimuli series of 15 80-dB tones and of 1 100-dB tone in the 11th trial. The depressive patients displayed lower basal conductance levels and lower conductance amplitudes in orienting responses to the first stimulus and to stimulus change. No differences were found in conductance response amplitudes of stimuli series, although a tendency towards …
Auditory Late Cortical Response and Speech Recognition in Digisonic Cochlear Implant Users
2002
Objective The purpose of the study was to test for differences in late electrically evoked auditory potentials between subjects exhibiting “good” versus “poor” speech recognition performances with their cochlear implants. Methods Late auditory evoked responses were measured in 30 subjects equipped with the Digisonic (MXM, Antibes, France) cochlear implant, 15 of whom had “good” speech recognition scores (i.e., more than 89% correct phoneme identification without lip reading). The 15 other subjects had poorer speech recognition scores (i.e., less than 85%). Results Differences in N1P2 amplitude, as well as P1, N1, and P2 latencies, and N1-P1 and N1-P2 latency intervals were tested. Wave P2 l…
The time course of temporal discrimination: An ERP study
2009
Objective: The question of how temporal information is processed by the brain is still a matter of debate. This study aimed to elucidate the brain electrical activity associated with a visual temporal discrimination task. Methods: For this purpose, 44 participants were required to compare pairs of sequentially presented time intervals: a fixed standard interval (1000 ms), and an equal-to-standard, longer (1200 ms) or shorter (800 ms) comparison interval. Behavioural data and event-related potentials (ERPs) were analyzed. Results: Long intervals were more rapidly identified than short intervals. The amplitude of the contingent negative variation (CNV) found at frontocentral sites before the …