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Interhemispheric interactions and redundancy gain: tests of an interhemispheric inhibition hypothesis

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Abstract

In simple reaction time (RT) tasks, responses are faster when stimuli are presented to both the left and right visual hemifields than when a stimulus is presented to a single hemifield. Paradoxically, this redundancy gain with bilateral stimuli is enhanced in split-brain individuals relative to normals. This article reports three experiments testing an account of that enhancement in which normals’ responses to bilateral stimuli are slowed by interhemispheric inhibition. In simple RT tasks, normal participants responded bimanually to left, right, or bilateral visual stimuli. In choice RT tasks, they responded to each stimulus with one hand, responding bimanually only when both stimuli were presented. Measurements of response forcefulness (Experiment 1) and electroencephalographic activity (Experiments 2 and 3) showed no evidence of the correlation patterns predicted by the hypothesis of interhemispheric inhibition. The results suggest that such inhibition is unlikely to be the explanation for enhanced redundancy gain in split-brain individuals.

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Notes

  1. This argument neglects the fact that EEG readings at Cz are also influenced to some degree by lateralized activity because of volume conduction. Fortunately, however, the effects of this neglected volume conduction can be determined analytically. Volume conduction would necessarily tend to increase the correlations of Cz with both C3′ and C4′, beyond that due purely to the common influences of symmetric influences. As these correlations increase, the partial correlation under discussion must decrease (Edwards 1985, Eq. 3.6). Thus, if C3′ and C4′ are negatively correlated as suggested by the interhemispheric inhibition hypothesis, then the effect of this volume conduction would be to exaggerate the estimated negativity. On the other hand, if C3′ and C4′ are truly positively correlated, then the effect of this volume conduction would be to reduce the estimated positivity. In this case, partialling out Cz removes not only the effects of the symmetric influences but also whatever common correlated motor activity is volume conducted to Cz. The conclusion of this analysis is that the effects of volume conduction on the analysis are somewhat favorable to the interhemispheric hypothesis, tending to make the partial correlation under examination somewhat less positive or more negative than it would have been without such volume conduction.

  2. I initially computed these correlations using EEG values measured relative to the average during 200 ms pre-stimulus baseline period, but these correlations displayed a pattern that I believe was artifactual. Specifically, these correlations were reduced by approximately 25% during the baseline period, relative to the correlations for later time points and relative to the correlations shown in Fig. 4. I believe that reduction was an artifactual consequence of selectively removing variability during the pre-stimulus baseline period (i.e., by forcing every trial to have the same mean during that period). Consistent with this belief, I found that using some other time range as the baseline period (e.g., 1,800–2,000 ms after stimulus onset) led to similarly reduced correlations in that other time range. To avoid this artifact, I computed the correlations shown in the figure by scoring each EEG reading relative to the overall average reading on its channel during the full trial. Conceptually, this amounts to using the full trial average as the baseline activity level, rather than the average of just the pre-stimulus period. As is evident from the figure, this symmetric treatment of all time points eliminates the local reduction in correlation associated with a shorter baseline period. Fortunately, however, the overall conclusions of this article do not depend on the choice of baseline.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from The Marsden Fund administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand. I thank Steve and Erica Atkins, Jared Bowden, and Ann Reynolds for testing the experimental participants; David Bilkey, Michael Corballis, Avishai Henik, James McClelland, and Jeff Wickens for helpful discussions; and Patricia Haden, Hartmut Leuthold, Carlo Marzi, Allen Osman, Ann Reynolds, Wolfgang Schwarz, and an anonymous reviewer for useful comments on earlier versions of the article.

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    Jeff Miller

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Miller, J. Interhemispheric interactions and redundancy gain: tests of an interhemispheric inhibition hypothesis. Exp Brain Res 180, 389–413 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-0883-6

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