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Relating the steady-state visual evoked potential to single-stimulus responses derived from m-sequence stimulation

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Abstract

Purpose

Steady-state visual evoked potentials have various applications, including objective acuity testing. However, a non-monotonous spatial-frequency tuning (a “notch”) occurs at intermediate spatial frequencies in about half of the examinees. One possible reason lies in the temporal superposition of single-stimulus responses. This was investigated in 20 subjects.

Methods

Single-stimulus responses to checkerboard onsets were estimated through deconvolution of responses to m-sequence stimulation. Based on these, steady-state responses were predicted through superposition of temporally overlapping single-stimulus responses and compared to normally recorded steady-state responses. Discrepancies were analyzed in both the time and frequency domains.

Results

The agreement between predicted and recorded steady-state responses varied greatly among subjects, ranging from a good match including non-monotonous features of the tuning curve to substantial deviations. Although in some subjects the tuning of the recorded responses was better matched by the predicted responses than by the deconvolved m-sequence responses from which the prediction was computed, the correlation was not significantly different at the group level. In most subjects, there was only a small to moderate contribution of higher harmonics. The match between predicted and recorded responses was not always uniform across electrode locations.

Conclusions

Our data are consistent with temporal superposition explaining an interindividually variable part of the checksize tuning curve without being its primary determinant.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (BA 877/21) and thank our subjects for their participation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sektion Funktionelle Sehforschung, Klinik für Augenheilkunde, Universitätsklinikum Freiburg, Killianstr. 5, 79106, Freiburg, Germany

    Sven P. Heinrich, Maresa Groten & Michael Bach

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  1. Sven P. Heinrich
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  2. Maresa Groten
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  3. Michael Bach
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Correspondence to Sven P. Heinrich.

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Heinrich, S.P., Groten, M. & Bach, M. Relating the steady-state visual evoked potential to single-stimulus responses derived from m-sequence stimulation. Doc Ophthalmol 131, 13–24 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10633-015-9492-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10633-015-9492-z

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