TRANSIENT EVOKED RESPONSES IN STEADY STATE POTENTIALS

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Oscillatory rhythms in the brain are of interest to both physiologists and biopsychologists because they may be part of a mechanism of "sensory- binding' which is hypothesized to synchronize neuronal activity related to a perceptual object. One of the brain waves studied occurs when auditory stimuli are presented at regular intervals at a repetition-rate near 40- Hz. We can now show that these "steady-state" potentials are generated by summation of a series of transient evoked-responses synchronized to the stimuli. The transient waveforms are different at different repetition- rates. They also show differences depending upon whether or not the stimulus is perceived as having "temporal continuity", which in Gestalt psychology is referred to as "sequential integration". These new evoked-responses provide a possible tool for bridging between physiological experiments in animals and biopsychological experiments in humans, concerning brain mechanisms related to sensory or cognitive processes. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: This research provides the foundation for commercialization of a PC-based system which can record transient evoked-responses to "steady-state" stimuli. The demand for the system will come from research laboratories and clinical facilities which record cortical evoked-responses, in either humans or animals.