J. Lavikainen et al., BINAURAL INTERACTION IN THE HUMAN BRAIN CAN BE NONINVASIVELY ACCESSEDWITH LONG-LATENCY EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS, Neuroscience letters, 222(1), 1997, pp. 37-40
Invasive microelectrode measurements have demonstrated binaural intera
ction effects of summation, occlusion, and suppression. Here we demons
trate these phenomena in humans using non-invasive long-latency cortic
al event-related potential (ERP) components N1 and mismatch negativity
(MMN). Subjects were presented with monaural and binaural stimulus tr
ains consisting of frequent standard stimuli and deviant stimuli devia
ting from the standard either in frequency, intensity, or duration. Th
e binaural N1 was smaller than the monaural N1. MMN for the intensity
change was larger with binaural than monaural stimulation, whereas for
the frequency and duration change, the MMN amplitude remained unchang
ed. Thus, cortical binaural interactions reflected suppression in the
N1, summation for the intensity MMN, and occlusion for the frequency a
nd duration MMNs. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.