Cortical Excitability
Research Papers
Self-regulation of Slow Cortical Potentials in Children with Migraine: An Exploratory Study
Migraine patients are characterized by increased amplitudes of slow cortical potentials (SCPs), representing pronounced excitability of cortical networks. The present study investigated the efficiency of biofeedback training of SCPs in young migraineurs. Ten children suffering from migraine without aura participated in 10 feedback sessions. They were compared with 10 healthy children for regulation abilities of cortical negativity and with 10 migraineurs from the waiting list for clinical efficacy. During the first two sessions, the migraine children were characterised by lacking ability to control cortical negativity, especially during transfer trials, compared with healthy controls. However, there was no difference following 10 sessions of training. Feedback training was accompanied by significant reduction of cortical excitability. This was probably responsible for the clinical efficacy of the training; a significant reduction of days with migraine and other headache parameters was observed. It is suggested that normalization of the threshold regulation of cortical excitability during feedback training may result in clinical improvement.
View Full Paper →Self-regulation of slow cortical potentials in psychiatric patients: Schizophrenia
Slow cortical potentials (SCPs) are considered to reflect the regulation of attention resources and cortical excitability in cortical neuronal networks. Impaired attentional functioning, as found in patients with schizophrenic disorders, may covary with impaired SCP regulation. This hypothesis was tested using a self-regulation paradigm. Twelve medicated male schizophrenic inpatients and 12 healthy male controls received continuous feedback of their SCPs, during intervals of 8 s each, by means of a visual stimulus (a stylized rocket) moving horizontally across a TV screen. The position of the feedback stimulus was a linear function of the integrated SCP at each point in time during the feedback interval. Subjects were required to increase or reduce negative SCPs (referred to pretrial baseline) depending on the presentation of a discriminative stimulus. The correct response was indicated by the amount of forward movement of the feedback stimulus and by monetary rewards. Schizophrenics participated in 20 sessions (each comprising 110 trials), while controls participated in 5 sessions. Compared with the healthy controls, schizophrenics showed no significant differentiation between negativity increase and negativity suppression during the first sessions. However, in the last 3 sessions, patients achieved differentiation similar to controls, demonstrating the acquisition of SCP control after extensive training.
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