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Kisker J, Johnsdorf M, Sagehorn M, Schöne B, Gruber T. Induced oscillatory brain responses under virtual reality conditions in the context of repetition priming. Exp Brain Res 2024; 242:525-541. [PMID: 38200371 PMCID: PMC10894769 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-023-06766-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2023] [Accepted: 12/12/2023] [Indexed: 01/12/2024]
Abstract
In the human electroencephalogram (EEG), induced oscillatory responses in various frequency bands are regarded as valuable indices to examine the neural mechanisms underlying human memory. While the advent of virtual reality (VR) drives the investigation of mnemonic processing under more lifelike settings, the joint application of VR and EEG methods is still in its infancy (e.g., due to technical limitations impeding the signal acquisition). The objective of the present EEG study was twofold. First, we examined whether the investigation of induced oscillations under VR conditions yields equivalent results compared to standard paradigms. Second, we aimed at obtaining further insights into basic memory-related brain mechanisms in VR. To these ends, we relied on a standard implicit memory design, namely repetition priming, for which the to-be-expected effects are well-documented for conventional studies. Congruently, we replicated a suppression of the evoked potential after stimulus onset. Regarding the induced responses, we observed a modulation of induced alphaband in response to a repeated stimulus. Importantly, our results revealed a repetition-related suppression of the high-frequency induced gammaband response (>30 Hz), indicating the sharpening of a cortical object representation fostering behavioral priming effects. Noteworthy, the analysis of the induced gammaband responses required a number of measures to minimize the influence of external and internal sources of artefacts (i.e., the electrical shielding of the technical equipment and the control for miniature eye movements). In conclusion, joint VR-EEG studies with a particular focus on induced oscillatory responses offer a promising advanced understanding of mnemonic processing under lifelike conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joanna Kisker
- Institute of Psychology, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany.
| | - Marike Johnsdorf
- Institute of Psychology, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany
| | - Merle Sagehorn
- Institute of Psychology, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany
| | - Benjamin Schöne
- Institute of Psychology, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany
- Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
| | - Thomas Gruber
- Institute of Psychology, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany
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Loughrey DG, Jordan C, Ibanez A, Parra MA, Lawlor BA, Reilly RB. Age-related hearing loss associated with differences in the neural correlates of feature binding in visual working memory. Neurobiol Aging 2023; 132:233-245. [PMID: 37866083 DOI: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2023.09.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2023] [Revised: 08/09/2023] [Accepted: 09/25/2023] [Indexed: 10/24/2023]
Abstract
The underlying neural mechanisms underpinning the association between age-related hearing loss (ARHL) and dementia remain unclear. A limitation has been the lack of functional neuroimaging studies in ARHL cohorts to help clarify this relationship. In the present study, we investigated the neural correlates of feature binding in visual working memory with ARHL (controls = 14, mild HL = 21, and moderate or greater HL = 23). Participants completed a visual change detection task assessing feature binding while their neural activity was synchronously recorded via high-density electroencephalography. There was no difference in accuracy scores for ARHL groups compared to controls. There was increased electrophysiological activity in those with ARHL, particularly in components indexing the earlier stages of visual cognitive processing. This activity was more pronounced with more severe ARHL and was associated with maintained feature binding. Source space (sLORETA) analyses indicated greater activity in networks modulated by frontoparietal and temporal regions. Our results demonstrate there may be increased involvement of neurocognitive control networks to maintain lower-order neurocognitive processing disrupted by ARHL.
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Affiliation(s)
- David G Loughrey
- Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, Ireland; Global Brain Health Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, Ireland.
| | - Catherine Jordan
- Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, Ireland; Global Brain Health Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Agustin Ibanez
- Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, Ireland; Global Brain Health Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; Cognitive Neuroscience Center, University of San Andrés, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile
| | - Mario A Parra
- School of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
| | - Brian A Lawlor
- Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, Ireland; Global Brain Health Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Richard B Reilly
- Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, Ireland; Trinity Centre for Biomedical Engineering, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, Ireland; School of Engineering, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, Ireland; School of Medicine, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, Ireland
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Gallegos Ayala GI, Haslacher D, Krol LR, Soekadar SR, Zander TO. Assessment of mental workload across cognitive tasks using a passive brain-computer interface based on mean negative theta-band amplitudes. FRONTIERS IN NEUROERGONOMICS 2023; 4:1233722. [PMID: 38234499 PMCID: PMC10790894 DOI: 10.3389/fnrgo.2023.1233722] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2023] [Accepted: 10/24/2023] [Indexed: 01/19/2024]
Abstract
Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) can provide real-time and continuous assessments of mental workload in different scenarios, which can subsequently be used to optimize human-computer interaction. However, assessment of mental workload is complicated by the task-dependent nature of the underlying neural signals. Thus, classifiers trained on data from one task do not generalize well to other tasks. Previous attempts at classifying mental workload across different cognitive tasks have therefore only been partially successful. Here we introduce a novel algorithm to extract frontal theta oscillations from electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings of brain activity and show that it can be used to detect mental workload across different cognitive tasks. We use a published data set that investigated subject dependent task transfer, based on Filter Bank Common Spatial Patterns. After testing, our approach enables a binary classification of mental workload with performances of 92.00 and 92.35%, respectively for either low or high workload vs. an initial no workload condition, with significantly better results than those of the previous approach. It, nevertheless, does not perform beyond chance level when comparing high vs. low workload conditions. Also, when an independent component analysis was done first with the data (and before any additional preprocessing procedure), even though we achieved more stable classification results above chance level across all tasks, it did not perform better than the previous approach. These mixed results illustrate that while the proposed algorithm cannot replace previous general-purpose classification methods, it may outperform state-of-the-art algorithms in specific (workload) comparisons.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guillermo I. Gallegos Ayala
- Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Clinical Neurotechnology Laboratory, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - David Haslacher
- Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Clinical Neurotechnology Laboratory, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Laurens R. Krol
- Neuroadaptive Human-Computer Interaction, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, Cottbus, Brandenburg, Germany
- Zander Laboratories B.V., Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Surjo R. Soekadar
- Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Clinical Neurotechnology Laboratory, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Thorsten O. Zander
- Neuroadaptive Human-Computer Interaction, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, Cottbus, Brandenburg, Germany
- Zander Laboratories B.V., Amsterdam, Netherlands
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Mimnaugh KJ, Center EG, Suomalainen M, Becerra I, Lozano E, Murrieta-Cid R, Ojala T, LaValle SM, Federmeier KD. Virtual Reality Sickness Reduces Attention During Immersive Experiences. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VISUALIZATION AND COMPUTER GRAPHICS 2023; 29:4394-4404. [PMID: 37788212 DOI: 10.1109/tvcg.2023.3320222] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/05/2023]
Abstract
In this paper, we show that Virtual Reality (VR) sickness is associated with a reduction in attention, which was detected with the P3b Event-Related Potential (ERP) component from electroencephalography (EEG) measurements collected in a dual-task paradigm. We hypothesized that sickness symptoms such as nausea, eyestrain, and fatigue would reduce the users' capacity to pay attention to tasks completed in a virtual environment, and that this reduction in attention would be dynamically reflected in a decrease of the P3b amplitude while VR sickness was experienced. In a user study, participants were taken on a tour through a museum in VR along paths with varying amounts of rotation, shown previously to cause different levels of VR sickness. While paying attention to the virtual museum (the primary task), participants were asked to silently count tones of a different frequency (the secondary task). Control measurements for comparison against the VR sickness conditions were taken when the users were not wearing the Head-Mounted Display (HMD) and while they were immersed in VR but not moving through the environment. This exploratory study shows, across multiple analyses, that the effect mean amplitude of the P3b collected during the task is associated with both sickness severity measured after the task with a questionnaire (SSQ) and with the number of counting errors on the secondary task. Thus, VR sickness may impair attention and task performance, and these changes in attention can be tracked with ERP measures as they happen, without asking participants to assess their sickness symptoms in the moment.
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Duan D, Wu Z, Zhou Y, Wan X, Wen D. Working memory training and evaluation based on brain-computer interface and virtual reality: our opinion. Front Hum Neurosci 2023; 17:1291983. [PMID: 37941569 PMCID: PMC10627994 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1291983] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/10/2023] [Accepted: 10/09/2023] [Indexed: 11/10/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Dingna Duan
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Zhonglin Wu
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
| | - Yanhong Zhou
- School of Mathematics and Information Science and Technology, Hebei Normal University of Science and Technology, Qinhuangdao, China
| | - Xianglong Wan
- School of Intelligence Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China
| | - Dong Wen
- School of Intelligence Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China
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