Waves of Change: Brain Sensitivity to Differential, not Absolute, Stimulus Intensity is Conserved Across Humans and Rats.

ABSTRACT: Living in rapidly changing environments has shaped the mammalian brain toward high sensitivity to abrupt and intense sensory events-often signaling threats or affordances requiring swift reactions. Unsurprisingly, such events elicit a widespread electrocortical response (the vertex potential, VP), likely related to the preparation of appropriate behavioral reactions. Although the VP magnitude is largely determined by stimulus intensity, the relative contribution of the differential and absolute components of intensity remains unknown. Here, we dissociated the effects of these two components. We systematically varied the size of abrupt intensity increases embedded within continuous stimulation at different absolute intensities, while recording brain activity in humans (with scalp electroenc

SUBMITTER: Somervail R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7786352 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature