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Brain, Vol. 118, No. 2, 473-484, 1995
© 1995 Oxford University Press

research-article

Auditory and visual sensory representations in human prefrontal cortex as revealed by stimulus-evoked spike-wave complexes

J. M. Clarke1,3,, E. Halgren1,4, J.-M. Scarabin2 and P. Chauvel1

1INSERM CJF 90–12 Clinique Neurologique 2Clinique Neurochirurgicale, CHRU Pontchaillou Rennes, France 3Department of Psychology, University of North Texas Denton 4Wadsworth VAMC, Department of Psychiatry and Brain Research Institute, UCLA Los Angeles, USA

Correspondence to: Correspondence to: J. M. Clarke, Department of Psychology, University of North Texas, PO Box 13587, Denton, TX 76203–3587, USA

Multimodal sensory properties of the prefrontal cortex have been extensively studied in monkeys, while little is known of such functions in humans. We report electrophysiological evidence for auditory and visual representations in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, as inferred from intracerebral ‘depth’ recordings of focal, sensory-evoked spike-wave complexes (SWC) in an epileptic patient. In addition to clinical monitoring, the patient participated in behavioural evoked potential studies involving auditory and visual discrimination tasks. Inspection of evoked potential recordings from different medial-to-lateral prefrontal sites revealed overlapping, but non-identical topographies of evoked SWC for the two sensory modalities. The maximal activity of sensory-evoked SWC was located 7 mm more medially for visual than for auditory stimuli, and occurred later for visual presentations (mean = III ms following stimulus onset) than for auditory ones (mean = 87 ms). Effects of sensory habituation were seen. Evoked SWC were less likely to occur following repeated presentations of an unchanging tone than when tones alternated in pitch, or when a tone followed an omission in stimulus presentation. Visual hemifield effects were found, with greater prefrontal responsiveness to presentations in the contralateral visual hemifield. These results are consistent with electro-physiological findings in animals indicating overlapping auditory and visual representations in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

sensory-evoked potentials; prefrontal cortex; intracranial recordings; epilepsy

Received February 11, 1994. Revised August 10, 1994. Accepted November 21, 1994.


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