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N100 as a generic cortical electrophysiological marker based on decomposition of TMS-evoked potentials across five anatomic locations

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Abstract

N100, the negative peak of electrical response occurring around 100 ms, is present in diverse functional paradigms including auditory, visual, somatic, behavioral and cognitive tasks. We hypothesized that the presence of the N100 across different paradigms may be indicative of a more general property of the cerebral cortex regardless of functional or anatomic specificity. To test this hypothesis, we combined transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroencephalography (EEG) to measure cortical excitability by TMS across cortical regions without relying on specific sensory, cognitive or behavioral modalities. The five stimulated regions included left prefrontal, left motor, left primary auditory cortices, the vertex and posterior cerebellum with stimulations performed using supra- and subthreshold intensities. EEG responses produced by TMS stimulation at the five locations all generated N100s that peaked at the vertex. The amplitudes of the N100s elicited by these five diverse cortical origins were statistically not significantly different (all uncorrected p > 0.05). No other EEG response components were found to have this global property of N100. Our findings suggest that anatomy- and modality-specific interpretation of N100 should be carefully evaluated, and N100 by TMS may be used as a biomarker for evaluating local versus general cortical properties across the brain.

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Acknowledgments

Support was received from NIH grants MH085646, DA027680 and MH103222

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, P.O. Box 21247, Baltimore, MD, 21228, USA

    Xiaoming Du, Ann Summerfelt, Laura M. Rowland, Joshua Chiappelli, Peter Kochunov & L. Elliot Hong

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, 21250, USA

    Fow-Sen Choa

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  1. Xiaoming Du
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  2. Fow-Sen Choa
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Correspondence to Xiaoming Du.

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Du, X., Choa, FS., Summerfelt, A. et al. N100 as a generic cortical electrophysiological marker based on decomposition of TMS-evoked potentials across five anatomic locations. Exp Brain Res 235, 69–81 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-016-4773-7

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