Alan Pegna

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Papers by Alan Pegna

Individual Prediction of Postoperative Verbal Memory in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: the Contribution of Postictal Memory Testing (S48.004)

Neurology, Apr 8, 2019

Interindividual differences in brain dynamics of early visual processes: Impact on score accuracy in the mental rotation task

Psychophysiology, Aug 4, 2020

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Editorial: Where the rubber meets the road in visual perception: High temporal‐precision brain signals to top‐down and bottom‐up influences on perceptual resolution

European Journal of Neuroscience

Analysis of human brain responses from various neuroimaging techniques (EEG, S-EEG, ECoG, or MEG)... more Analysis of human brain responses from various neuroimaging techniques (EEG, S-EEG, ECoG, or MEG) to visual stimuli in both the time- and the time-frequency domain have provided means for researchers to understand the early stages of visual perception in humans. In the time-domain, event-related potentials (ERPs) have been used as neurocognitive tools to study a wide range of cognitive processing in humans, e.g. attention, vigilance, arousal, since the 1960's (e.g. Haider et al. 1964; Spong et al. 1965; Eason et al. 1969). Importantly, the early neurophysiological studies also drew attention to the importance of carefully characterizing the visual stimulus - to account for non-linear behavior of ERPs especially Steady State Visual Evoked Potentials (van der Tweel & Lunel, 1965; van der Tweel & Spekreijse, 1969).

Effects of stereoscopic disparity on early ERP components during classification of three-dimensional objects

Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006), Jan 19, 2017

This study investigates the effects of stereo disparity on the perception of three-dimensional (3... more This study investigates the effects of stereo disparity on the perception of three-dimensional (3D) object shape. We tested the hypothesis that stereo input modulates the brain activity related to perceptual analyses of 3D shape configuration during image classification. High-density (256-channel) EEG was used to record the temporal dynamics of visual shape processing under conditions of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) visual presentation. On each trial, observers made image classification judgements ('Same'/'Different') to two briefly presented, multi-part, novel objects. On different-object trials, stimuli could either share volumetric parts but not the global 3D shape configuration, have different parts but the same global 3D shape configuration, or differ on both aspects. Analyses using mass univariate contrasts showed that the earliest sensitivity to 2D versus 3D viewing appeared as a negative deflection over posterior locations on the N1 compone...

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Direction of Biological Motion Affects Early Brain Activation: A Link with Social Cognition

PLOS ONE, 2015

A number of EEG studies have investigated the time course of brain activation for biological move... more A number of EEG studies have investigated the time course of brain activation for biological movement over this last decade, however the temporal dynamics of processing are still debated. Moreover, the role of direction of movement has not received much attention even though it is an essential component allowing us to determine the intentions of the moving agent, and thus permitting the anticipation of potential social interactions. In this study, we examined event-related responses (ERPs) in 15 healthy human participants to light point walkers and their scrambled counterparts, whose movements occurred either in the radial or in the lateral plane. Compared to scrambled motion (SM), biological motion (BM) showed an enhanced negativity between 210 and 360ms. A source localization algorithm (sLORETA) revealed that this was due to an increase in superior and middle temporal lobe activity. Regarding direction, we found that radial BM produced an enhanced P1 compared to lateral BM, lateral SM and radial SM. This heightened P1 was due to an increase in activity in extrastriate regions, as well as in superior temporal, medial parietal and medial prefrontal areas. This network is known to be involved in decoding the underlying intentionality of the movement and in the attribution of mental states. The social meaning signaled by the direction of biological motion therefore appears to trigger an early response in brain activity.

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The time course of semantic category processing in the cerebral hemispheres: an electrophysiological study

Cognitive Brain Research, 2001

Using visual half-field presentations of words to the right (RVF) and to the left visual field (L... more Using visual half-field presentations of words to the right (RVF) and to the left visual field (LVF), this study investigated the time course of the hemispheric involvement in the processing of semantic category information. Multi-channel event related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 15 healthy subjects during a categorisation task of sequentially presented word pairs. Subjects had to judge mentally after the appearance of the second word whether the words of a pair were semantically related (SR) or not (SU). ERPs were computed, from 100 ms before the onset of the second word to 600 ms, for SR and SU conditions in the LVF and in the RVF separately. The temporal segmentation of ERP map series into sequences of quasi-stable map configurations revealed a total of seven segments in each visual field of which only the first five (S1-S5, appearing between 70 and 400 ms) showed different map configurations as a function of visual field but presented a similar temporal sequence in both visual fields. By contrast, of the last two segments (S6 and S7) which appeared between |400 and |600 ms, only S7 differentiated SR and SU conditions in terms of its duration. Source localisation analysis of the segments showed that following the initial activation of posterior brain regions as a function of the visual field of presentation, a common neural network was activated in the left hemisphere (LH) although the dynamics of activation varied as a function of visual field. Concerning the role of the right hemisphere (RH) in lexico-semantic processing, the results presented here appear to be compatible with a 'callosal relay model' and suggest that, in healthy subjects, information is transferred rapidly (|150 ms) from the RH to the language dominant-LH.

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Cerebral processes in mental transformations of body parts: recognition prior to rotation

Brain research. Cognitive brain research, 2005

There is growing evidence that the visual processing of human body stimuli is particular and dist... more There is growing evidence that the visual processing of human body stimuli is particular and distinct from that of other objects. This is due to implicit knowledge of anatomical and biomechanical constraints of the human body. The question arises whether body stimuli in which biomechanical constraints are violated are processed in the same way as realistic bodies. This study investigated the neural mechanisms of anatomically plausible and implausible body stimuli. Event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded in healthy participants during mental rotation of body parts. Subjects were shown pictures of body parts or whole bodies in which one element (finger, arm) could be anatomically accurate or inaccurate (e.g., left forearm attached to right upper arm). Furthermore, the body parts were rotated in 7 different orientations, from 0 degrees to 180 degrees in 30 degrees increments, resulting in some possible and some impossible positions of the body parts. Analysis of the 123-channel ER...

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Dynamics of brain activation during a word and image recognition task: An electrophysiological study

NeuroImage, 2001

ABSTRACT

Chronic deep brain stimulation in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy

Seizure, 2011

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Basic Instinct Undressed: Early Spatiotemporal Processing for Primary Sexual Characteristics

PLoS ONE, 2013

This study investigates the spatiotemporal dynamics associated with conscious and non-conscious p... more This study investigates the spatiotemporal dynamics associated with conscious and non-conscious processing of naked and dressed human bodies. To this effect, stimuli of naked men and women with visible primary sexual characteristics, as well as dressed bodies, were presented to 20 heterosexual male and female participants while acquiring high resolution EEG data. The stimuli were either consciously detectable (supraliminal presentations) or were rendered non-conscious through backward masking (subliminal presentations). The N1 event-related potential component was significantly enhanced in participants when they viewed naked compared to dressed bodies under supraliminal viewing conditions. More importantly, naked bodies of the opposite sex produced a significantly greater N1 component compared to dressed bodies during subliminal presentations, when participants were not aware of the stimulus presented. A source localization algorithm computed on the N1 showed that the response for naked bodies in the supraliminal viewing condition was stronger in body processing areas, primary visual areas and additional structures related to emotion processing. By contrast, in the subliminal viewing condition, only visual and body processing areas were found to be activated. These results suggest that naked bodies and primary sexual characteristics are processed early in time (i.e., ,200 ms) and activate key brain structures even when they are not consciously detected. It appears that, similarly to what has been reported for emotional faces, sexual features benefit from automatic and rapid processing, most likely due to their high relevance for the individual and their importance for the species in terms of reproductive success.

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Hemispheric dominance for melody recognition in musicians and non-musicians

Neuropsychologia, 1995

The article reports three experiments conducted to determine whether musicians possess better abi... more The article reports three experiments conducted to determine whether musicians possess better ability of recognising the sources of natural sounds than non-musicians. The study was inspired by reports which indicate that musical training develops not only musical hearing, but also enhances various non-musical auditory capabilities. Recognition and detection thresholds were measured for recordings of environmental sounds presented in quiet (Experiment 1) and in the background of a noise masker (Experiment 2). The listener's ability of sound source recognition was inferred from the recognition-detection threshold gap (RDTG) defined as the difference in signal level between the thresholds of sound recognition and sound detection. Contrary to what was expected from reports of enhanced auditory abilities of musicians, the RDTGs were not smaller for musicians than for non-musicians. In Experiment 3, detection thresholds were measured with an adaptive procedure comprising three interleaved stimulus tracks with different sounds. It was found that the threshold elevation caused by stimulus interleaving was similar for musicians and non-musicians. The lack of superiority of musicians over non-musicians in the auditory tasks explored in this study is explained in terms of a listening strategy known as casual listening mode, which is a basis for auditory orientation in the environment.

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Electrophysiological correlates of affective blindsight

NeuroImage, 2009

An EEG investigation was carried out in a patient with complete cortical blindness who presented ... more An EEG investigation was carried out in a patient with complete cortical blindness who presented affective blindsight, i.e. who performed above chance when asked to guess the emotional expressions on a series of faces. To uncover the electrophysiological mechanisms involved in this phenomenon we combined multivariate pattern recognition (MPR) with local field potential estimates provided by electric source imaging (ELECTRA). All faces, including neutral faces, elicited distinctive oscillatory EEG patterns that were correctly identified by the MPR algorithm as belonging to the class of facial expressions actually presented. Consequently, neural responses in this patient are not restricted to emotionally laden faces. Earliest nonspecific differences between faces occur from 70 ms onwards in the superior temporal polysensory area (STP). Emotion-specific responses were found after 120 ms in the right anterior areas with right amygdala activation observed only later (∼ 200 ms). Thus, affective blindsight might be mediated by subcortical afferents to temporal areas as suggested in some studies involving non-emotional stimuli. The early activation of the STP in the patient constitutes evidence for fast activation of higher order visual areas in humans despite bilateral V1 destruction. In addition, the absence of awareness of any visual experience in this patient suggests that neither the extrastriate visual areas, nor the prefrontal cortex activation alone are sufficient for conscious perception, which might require recurrent processing within a network of several cerebral areas including V1.

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NeuroImage, 2006

One of the critical functions of vision is to provide information about other individuals. Neuroi... more One of the critical functions of vision is to provide information about other individuals. Neuroimaging experiments examining the cortical regions that analyze the appearance of other people have found partially overlapping networks that respond selectively to human faces and bodies. In event-related potential (ERP) studies, faces systematically elicit a negative component peaking 170 ms after presentationthe N170. To characterize the electrophysiological response to human bodies, we compared the ERPs elicited by faces, bodies and various control stimuli. In Experiment 1, a comparison of ERPs elicited by faces, bodies, objects and places showed that pictures of the human body (without the head) elicit a negative component peaking at 190 ms (an N190). While broadly similar to the N170, the N190 differs in both spatial distribution and amplitude from the N1 components elicited by faces, objects and scenes and peaks significantly later than the N170. The difference between N190 and N170 was further supported using topographic analyses of ERPs and source localization techniques. A unique, stable map topography was found to characterize human bodies between 130 and 230 ms. In Experiment 2, we tested the four conditions from Experiment 1, as well as intact and scrambled silhouettes and stick figures of the human body. We found that intact silhouettes and stick figures elicited significantly greater N190 amplitudes than their scrambled counterparts. Thus, the N190 generalizes to some degree to schematic depictions of the human form. Overall, our findings are consistent with intertwined, but functionally distinct, neural representations of the human face and body.

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Increased focal interictal discharges during specific cognitive tasks

Neurocase, 1999

We present a patient with pharmacoresistant right temporal lobe epilepsy who showed a significant... more We present a patient with pharmacoresistant right temporal lobe epilepsy who showed a significant increase in focal interictal spikes in response to specific visuospatial tasks. Temporal spiking was particularly increased during immediate recall of visuospatial material, but not during verbal memory tasks. This reflexive phenomenon, situated in between cognitive alterations as seen in most patients with epilepsy and frank seizures elicited by higher cerebral function as in reflex epilepsy, is discussed in relation to cognition and underlying neural substrates.

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Controlling for interstimulus perceptual variance abolishes N170 face selectivity

Nature Neuroscience, 2007

Establishing when and how the human brain differentiates between object categories is key to unde... more Establishing when and how the human brain differentiates between object categories is key to understanding visual cognition. Event-related potential (ERP) investigations have led to the consensus that faces selectively elicit a negative wave peaking 170 ms after presentation, the 'N170'. In such experiments, however, faces are nearly always presented from a full front view, whereas other stimuli are more perceptually variable, leading to uncontrolled interstimulus perceptual variance (ISPV). Here, we compared ERPs elicited by faces, cars and butterflies while-for the first time-controlling ISPV (low or high). Surprisingly, the N170 was sensitive, not to object category, but to ISPV. In addition, we found category effects independent of ISPV 70 ms earlier than has been generally reported. These results demonstrate early ERP category effects in the visual domain, call into question the face selectivity of the N170 and establish ISPV as a critical factor to control in experiments relying on multitrial averaging.

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Emotional expressions modulate low α and β oscillations in a cortically blind patient

International Journal of Psychophysiology, 2013

Studies of cortical blindness have suggested that some residual visual function may persist witho... more Studies of cortical blindness have suggested that some residual visual function may persist without perceptual awareness, a condition known as blindsight. To investigate electrophysiological evidence of unconscious processing of emotional stimuli, we examined the event-related oscillations (EROs) in a 62 year-old male patient (TN) with affective blindsight during random stimulation of three facial expressions (fearful, happy and neutral). Spectral power analysis in response to the different emotions revealed significant differences between fearful and happy faces over the right frontal regions at 7-8 Hz (low α), and between emotional and neutral faces over the left frontal sites at 12-13 Hz (low β) in a time period between 100-400 ms after visual stimulus onset. These results demonstrate that emotional face processing occurs very early in time in the absence of any functional striate cortex, and further reveals the existence of specific oscillatory frequencies that reflect unconscious processing of facial expressions in affective blindsight.

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Language selection in bilinguals: A spatio-temporal analysis of electric brain activity

International Journal of Psychophysiology, 2007

Language selection refers to the cognitive mechanism that allows bilinguals to communicate in one... more Language selection refers to the cognitive mechanism that allows bilinguals to communicate in one language or the other and to switch between languages depending on the listener. Previous studies suggested that various brain areas might be involved in this process. However, the question remains whether language selection is achieved through a language-specific mechanism or through a general cognitive control process. To address this question, we compared event-related potentials (ERPs) induced by language selection and task selection processes during image naming. ERPs were collected from bilingual subjects while tested in two different contexts: a monolingual task selection context (TSc) where a post-stimulus cue instructed subjects either to name the image or generate a corresponding verb in their first language (L1), and a bilingual language selection context (LSc) where the cue indicated to name the image either in the first or the second language. By comparing the ERPs induced by the same L1 naming as a function of context, we assumed that if the selection processes varied across contexts, then electric brain responses should differ rapidly after the cue presentation. Our analysis indicated that the first ERP differences accounting for the diverging processes involved appeared between ∼220 and 300 ms after the cue. The estimation by source localisation of brain regions accounting for these differences pointed to an increased activation during LSc in the left middle frontal-precentral gyri, supramarginal and angular gyri. Our results suggest that language selection is achieved through a neural network involving areas implicated in both general cognitive processes and language processing.

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Electrophysiological evidence for early non-conscious processing of fearful facial expressions

International Journal of Psychophysiology, 2008

Non-conscious processing of emotionally expressive faces has been found in patients with damage t... more Non-conscious processing of emotionally expressive faces has been found in patients with damage to visual brain areas and has been demonstrated experimentally in healthy controls using visual masking procedures. The time at which this subliminal processing occurs is not known. To address this question, a group of healthy participants performed a fearful face detection task in which backward masked fearful and non-fearful faces were presented at durations ranging from 16 to 266 ms. On the basis of the group's behavioural results, high-density event-related potentials were analysed for subliminal, intermediate and supraliminal presentations. Subliminally presented fearful faces were found to produce a stronger posterior negativity at 170 ms (N170) than non-fearful faces. This increase was also observed for intermediate and supraliminal conditions. A later component, the N2 occurring between 260 and 300 ms, was the earliest component related to stimulus detectability, increasing with target duration and differentiating fearful from non-fearful faces at longer durations of presentation. Source localisation performed on the N170 component showed that fear produced a greater activation of extrastriate visual areas, particularly on the right. Whether they are presented subliminally or supraliminally, fearful faces are processed at an early stage in the stream of visual processing, giving rise to enhanced activation of right extrastriate temporal cortex as early as 170 ms post-stimulus onset.

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Spatio-temporal analysis of electric brain activity during semantic and phonological word processing

International Journal of Psychophysiology, 1999

There is an ongoing debate in cognitive neuroscience about the time course and the functional ind... more There is an ongoing debate in cognitive neuroscience about the time course and the functional independence of the different processes involved in encoding written language material. New data indicate very fast and highly parallel language analysis networks in the brain. Here we demonstrate a methodological approach to study the temporal dynamics of this network by searching for time periods where different task demands emphasize different Ž. aspects of the network. Multi-channel event related potentials ERPs were recorded during a semantic and a phonological reading task from 14 healthy subjects. Signals were analyzed exclusively on the basis of the spatial Ž. configuration of the electric potential distributions ERP maps , since differences in these spatial patterns directly reflect changes in the configuration of the active sources in the brain. This analysis did not reveal any differences of the evoked brain electric fields between the two tasks up to 280 ms post-stimulus. The ERP maps then differed for a brief period between 280 and 380 ms, before they were similar again. The analysis of the maps using a global linear localization procedure revealed a network of areas, active in both tasks, that mainly involved the left postero-temporal and left antero-temporal regions. The left posterior activation was found already around 100 ms post-stimulus, indicating that language-specific functions appear early in time. We therefore conclude that phonological and semantic processing are essentially performed in both tasks and that only late decision-related processes influence the relative strength of activity of the different modules in the complex language network.

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A glimpse into your vision

Human Brain Mapping, 2007

Invasive recordings of local field potentials (LFPs) have been used to ''read the mind'' of monke... more Invasive recordings of local field potentials (LFPs) have been used to ''read the mind'' of monkeys in real time. Here we investigated whether noninvasive field potentials estimated from the scalprecorded electroencephalogram (EEG) using the ELECTRA source localization algorithm could provide real-time decoding of mental states in healthy humans. By means of pattern recognition techniques on 500-ms EEG epochs, we were able to discriminate accurately from single trials which of four categories of visual stimuli the subjects were viewing. Our results show that it is possible to reproduce the decoding accuracy previously obtained in animals with invasive recordings. A comparison between the decoding results and the subjects' behavioral performance indicates that oscillatory activity (OA), elicited in specific brain regions) codes better for the visual stimulus category presented than the subjects' actual response, i.e., is insensitive to voluntary or involuntary errors. The identification of brain regions participating in the decoding process allowed us to construct 3D-functional images of the task-related OA. These images revealed the activation of brain regions known for their involvement in the processing of this type of visual stimuli. Electrical neuroimaging therefore appears to have the potential to establish what the brain is processing while the stimuli are being seen or categorized, i.e., concurrently with sensory-perceptual processes.

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