AN ODDBALL TASK ELICITING SENSORY FACILITATION RESPONSE:A PROMISING CANDIDATE FOR ATTENTION BIOMARKER STUDIES
Developing time-efficient experimental designs for assessment of EEG endophenotype markers of attention disorders is an important task in modern neuropsychiatry. This study presents an experimental design aimed to capture auditory event-related potentials (ERP) and event-related oscillations (ERO) to an oddball task with a fixed stimulus to stimulus interval (SOA = 1000 ms), rare targets (2000 Hz, 10% rate), frequent nontargets (1500 Hz, 80%), and rare stimulus omissions (10%). The data, expectedly, reveal highly robust effects distinguishing target and nontarget conditions. It was also revealed that p50, n100, and p200 ERP components related to sensory gating and observed for nontarget stimuli were strongly facilitated in responses to nontargets following omissions compared to nontargets following nontargets; this facilitation was also prominent for early event-related synchronization observed from delta to upper alpha bands. This experimental paradigm, therefore, enables assessment of a wide range of EEG biomarkers related to selective attention and sensory gating, and is a promising candidate for EEG endophenotype research in neuropsychiatry.