Altered states phenomena induced by visual flicker light stimulation.

Flicker light stimulation can induce short-term alterations in consciousness including hallucinatory color perception and geometric patterns. In the study at hand, the subjective experiences during 3 Hz and 10 Hz stroboscopic light stimulation of the closed eyes were assessed. In a within-subjects design (N = 24), we applied the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (mood state), time perception ratings, the Altered State of Consciousness Rating Scale, and the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory. Furthermore, we tested for effects of personality traits (NEO Five-Factor Inventory-2 and Tellegen Absorption Scale) on subjective experiences. Such systematic quantification improves replicability, facilitates comparisons between pharmacological and non-pharmacological techniques to induce altered states of consciousness, and is the prerequisite to study their underlying neuronal mechanisms. The resulting data showed that flicker light stimulation-induced states were characterized by vivid visual hallucinations of simple types, with effects strongest in the 10 Hz condition. Additionally, participants' personality trait of Absorption scores highly correlated with the experienced alterations in consciousness. Our data demonstrate that flicker light stimulation is capable of inducing visual effects with an intensity rated to be similar in strength to effects induced by psychedelic substances and thereby support the investigation of potentially shared underlying neuronal mechanisms.

Cathodal transcranial direct-current stimulation over right posterior parietal cortex enhances human temporal discrimination ability.

BACKGROUND: Time perception associated with durations from 1 s to several minutes involves activity in the right posterior parietal cortex (rPPC). It is unclear whether altering the activity of the rPPC affects an individual's timing performance. Here, we investigated the human timing performance under the application of transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) that altered the neural activities of the rPPC. METHODS: We measured the participants' duration-discrimination threshold by administering a behavioral task during the tDCS application. The tDCS conditions consisted of anodal, cathodal, and sham conditions. The electrodes were placed over the P4 position (10-20 system) and on the left supraorbital forehead. On each task trial, the participant observed two visual stimuli and indicated which was longer. The amount of difference between the two stimulus durations was varied repeatedly throughout the trials according to the participant's responses. The correct answer rate of the trials was calculated for each amount of difference, and the minimum amount with the correct answer rate exceeding 75% was selected as the threshold. The data were analyzed by a linear mixed-effects models procedure. RESULTS: Nineteen volunteers participated in the experiment. We excluded three participants from the analysis: two who reported extreme sleepiness while performing the task and one who could recognize the sham condition correctly with confidence. Our analysis of the 16 participants' data showed that the average value of the thresholds observed under the cathodal condition was lower than that of the sham condition. This suggests that inhibition of the rPPC leads to an improvement in temporal discrimination performance, resulting in improved timing performance. CONCLUSIONS: In the present study, we found a new effect that cathodal tDCS over the rPPC enhances temporal discrimination performance. In terms of the existence of anodal/cathodal tDCS effects on human timing performance, the results were consistent with a previous study that investigated temporal reproduction performance during tDCS application. However, the results of the current study further indicated that cathodal tDCS over the rPPC increases accuracy of observed time duration rather than inducing an overestimation as a previous study reported.

Similar effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of MT+ and a dorsomedial extrastriate site including V3A on pattern detection and position discrimination of rotating and radial motion patterns.

Our recent psychophysical experiments have identified differences in the spatial summation characteristics of pattern detection and position discrimination tasks performed with rotating, expanding, and contracting stimuli. Areas MT and MST are well established to be involved in processing these stimuli. fMRI results have shown retinotopic activation of area V3A depending on the location of the center of radial motion in vision. This suggests the possibility that V3A may be involved in position discrimination tasks with these motion patterns. Here we use repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over MT+ and a dorsomedial extrastriate region including V3A to try to distinguish between TMS effects on pattern detection and position discrimination tasks. If V3A were involved in position discrimination, we would expect to see effects on position discrimination tasks, but not pattern detection tasks, with rTMS over this dorsomedial extrastriate region. In fact, we could not dissociate TMS effects on the two tasks, suggesting that they are performed by the same extrastriate area, in MT+.

Induced deficits in speed perception by transcranial magnetic stimulation of human cortical areas V5/MT+ and V3A.

In this report, we evaluate the role of visual areas responsive to motion in the human brain in the perception of stimulus speed. We first identified and localized V1, V3A, and V5/MT+ in individual participants on the basis of blood oxygenation level-dependent responses obtained in retinotopic mapping experiments and responses to moving gratings. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) was then used to disrupt the normal functioning of the previously localized visual areas in each participant. During the rTMS application, participants were required to perform delayed discrimination of the speed of drifting or spatial frequency of static gratings. The application of rTMS to areas V5/MT and V3A induced a subjective slowing of visual stimuli and (often) caused increases in speed discrimination thresholds. Deficits in spatial frequency discrimination were not observed for applications of rTMS to V3A or V5/MT+. The induced deficits in speed perception were also specific to the cortical site of TMS delivery. The application of TMS to regions of the cortex adjacent to V5/MT and V3A, as well as to area V1, produced no deficits in speed perception. These results suggest that, in addition to area V5/MT+, V3A plays an important role in a cortical network that underpins the perception of stimulus speed in the human brain.

Dissociation of numerosity and duration processing in the left intraparietal sulcus: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study.

A possible dissociation of duration and numerosity processing was tested in an off-line repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) design. Participants had to compare the numerosity of flashed dot sequences or the duration of single dot displays before and after 15 min of 1 Hz rTMS over one of three sites (the left or right intraparietal sulcus (IPS), or the vertex chosen as a control site). Compared to the control site, performance was only slowed down for the numerosity comparison task after the left IPS stimulation, whereas it was not affected for the duration comparison task for any of the parietal sites. These results show that the parietal area critically involved in numerosity processing is not involved in duration processing, revealing at least one cerebral site where duration and numerosity comparison processes dissociate.

Apparent speed increases at low luminance.

To investigate the effect of luminance on apparent speed, subjects adjusted the speed of a low-luminance rotating grating (0.31 cd/m(2)) to match that of a high-luminance one (1260 cd/m(2)). Above 4 Hz, subjects overestimated the speed of the low-luminance grating. This overestimation increased as a function of temporal rate and reached 30% around 10 Hz temporal rates. The speed overestimation became significant once the lower luminance was 2.4 log units lower than the high luminance comparison. Next the role of motion smear in speed overestimation was examined. First it was shown that the length of the perceived motion smear increased at low luminances. Second, the length of the visible smear was manipulated by changing the presentation time of the stimuli. Speed overestimation was reduced at shorter presentation times. Third the speed of a blurred stimulus was compared to a stimulus with sharp edges and the blurred stimulus was judged to move faster. These results indicate that the length of motion smear following a target contributes to its perceived speed and that this leads to speed overestimation at low luminance where motion traces lengthen because of increased persistence.

Role of GABAergic inhibition in the coding of interaural time differences of low-frequency sounds in the inferior colliculus.

A major cue for the localization of sound in space is the interaural time difference (ITD). We examined the role of inhibition in the shaping of ITD responses in the inferior colliculus (IC) by iontophoretically ejecting gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) antagonists and GABA itself using a multibarrel pipette. The GABA antagonists block inhibition, whereas the applied GABA provides a constant level of inhibition. The effects on ITD responses were evaluated before, during and after the application of the drugs. If GABA-mediated inhibition is involved in shaping ITD tuning in IC neurons, then applying additional amounts of this inhibitory transmitter should alter ITD tuning. Indeed, for almost all neurons tested, applying GABA reduced the firing rate and consequently sharpened ITD tuning. Conversely, blocking GABA-mediated inhibition increased the activity of IC neurons, often reduced the signal-to-noise ratio and often broadened ITD tuning. Blocking GABA could also alter the shape of the ITD function and shift its peak suggesting that the role of inhibition is multifaceted. These effects indicate that GABAergic inhibition at the level of the IC is important for ITD coding.

Behavioral evaluation of microwave irradiation.

Establishing safe exposure levels for microwave irradiation is important since new, more powerful emitters are developed and the potential for accidental exposure is increasing. Analysis of the behavior of exposed laboratory animals has proven to be an accurate and repeatable metric for assessing the effects of microwave irradiation. Determining the specific absorption rate (SAR) at which an animal will cease an ongoing behavior has proven useful in the development of safe exposure levels for humans. Behaviors that have been used are simple tasks, and the point at which behavior changes significantly or ceases has often been referred to as "work stoppage." The tasks have been used to evaluate the overwhelming effects of heating produced by microwave irradiation. Both whole-body exposures and partial-body exposures with hotspots have been evaluated. Recent studies have suggested that microwave effects on specific cognitive aspects of behavior such as attention, learning, memory, discrimination, and time perception may occur at SAR levels far below the SARs needed to cause work stoppage. New research studies are underway to evaluate microwave-induced cognitive effects.

Human time perception in temporal isolation: effects of illumination intensity.

Living in isolation from time cues under relatively high and low light intensities for a total (on average) of 24 days, 18 subjects estimated the passage of time by "producing" short (10 to 120 seconds) and long (1h) intervals throughout the experiments. The 1h productions were independent of light intensity and highly positively correlated with the duration of wake times. The short-interval productions were markedly increased under high light intensity. In a subsample of 6 subjects, the interaction between effects of body temperature and light condition on 10-second production was analyzed. Productions were negatively correlated with body temperature. In both dim and bright light, productions decreased by a factor of 0.7 per degree C. In bright light, production was increased by a factor of 1.2 relative to dim light. This effect was not mediated by body temperature, which itself was on average slightly increased in bright light. Since subjective time is slowed by bright light, objective time seems to pass faster in bright light.

Dose response study of human exposure to 60 Hz electric and magnetic fields.

This human exposure study examined the relationship between field strength and biological response and tested whether the exposure levels at which the greatest effects occur differ for different endpoints. Three matched groups of 18 men each participated in two 6 h exposure test sessions. All subjects were sham exposed in one session. In the other session, each group of subjects was exposed at a different level of combined electric and magnetic field strength (low group:6 kV/m, 10 microT; medium group:9 kV/m, 20 microT; and high group: 12 kV/m, 30 microT). The study was performed double blind, with exposure order counterbalanced. Significant slowing of heart rate, as well as alternations in the latency and amplitude of event-related brain potential measures derived from the electro encephalogram (EEG), occurred in the group exposed to the 9 kV/m, 20 microT combined field (medium group). Exposure at the other field strength levels had no influence on cardiac measures and differential effects on EEG activity. Significant decrements in reaction time and in performance accuracy on a time estimation task were observed only in the low group. These results provide support for the hypothesis that humans may be more responsive to some combinations or levels of field strength than to others and that such differences in responsivity may depend, in part, on the endpoint of interest.

Temporal bisection in rats: the effects of high-peak-power pulsed microwave irradiation.

The effects of high-peak-power, pulsed microwaves on a time perception and discrimination task were studied in rats. Exposures were performed with the TEMPO exposure system, which produces an 80 nanosecond pulse with peak-power levels in excess of 700 megawatts. The ability to expose animals to such fields within a controlled environment is unique. As determined by calorimetry, a maximal, whole-body-averaged, specific-absorption rate of 0.072 W/kg was produced. Thus exposures were well below a recommended SAR limit of 0.4 W/kg. Power levels of transmitted microwaves were varied over a 50 dB range to obtain ascending and descending dose-response functions for each of the behavioral measures. Measures of time perception, response bias, and total trials did not change with power level. Dose-response effects were observed for discriminability (ability to distinguish between durations), session time, and trial completions (null responses, failures to respond on a trial). Covarying sound and X-ray exposures produced by TEMPO did not reliably correlate with the observed microwave effects. The observation of repeatable dose-response effects on discriminability and null responses indicates that the microwave exposures were affecting cognitive function in the rats, particularly the decision-making process.