Visual object separation resolves competitive interactions in somatosensory cortex evoked signals during concurrent vibrotactile stimulation of the left and right hand.

We investigated the effect of visual separation of left and right hemispaces within peripersonal space to sustained tactile spatial attention processing and showed that visually perceived object separation weakened the competitive interaction for concurrent vibrotactile stimulation to two hands. Participants received concurrent vibrotactile stimulation at different frequencies on two hands (right: 20Hz; left: 24Hz) for 4500ms to elicit steady-state somatosensory evoked potentials (SSSEPs). They attended to one of the stimulated hands and reacted to rare transient events embedded in the attended ongoing stream.

Competitive interactions in somatosensory cortex for concurrent vibrotactile stimulation between and within hands.

We investigated competitive neural interactions for processing resources during sustained spatial attention in somatosensation. Participants received concurrent vibrotactile stimulation at different frequencies to either non-adjacent left hand fingers (within-hand) or fingers on two hands (between-hands) for 4500 ms to elicit steady-state somatosensory evoked potentials (SSSEPs). They attended to either one or both stimulated locations, respectively, and responded to rare events embedded in the ongoing stream.

Test-retest reliability of concurrently recorded steady-state and somatosensory evoked potentials in somatosensory sustained spatial attention.

We investigated the test-retest reliability of sustained spatial attention modulation of steady-state somatosensory evoked potentials (SSSEPs) and the N140 component of the somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs). Participants attended to one or both hands to perform a target detection task while concurrent mechanical vibrations were presented for 4500ms to both hands in two recording sessions. Results revealed that the amplitude and the attentional modulation of SSSEPs had high test-retest reliability, while the test-retest reliability for the N140 component was low.