Activation trace lifetime of human cortical responses evoked by apparent visual motion

Abstract

Visually evoked magnetoencephalographic responses were recorded from 11 healthy humans to 1.1 x 1.1 degrees oblique gratings moving quickly 0.2 degree rightwards and back once every 0.2-6.4 s. The aim was to study the duration of sensory memory in the motion-specific visual cortex called V5. Responses from the V5 region peaked at 140-180 ms after stimulus onset. Signal-to-noise ratio allowed source identification in eight subjects: bilaterally in four and unilaterally in four. The response strength as a function of interstimulus interval determined an activation trace lifetime, reflecting how long the preceding stimuli affect the response to the following stimulus, i.e. how long the V5 cortex "remembers' each stimulus. The lifetimes varied interindividually from 0.4 to 1.4 s, but were within 0.1 s in the hemispheres of the four subjects with bilaterally identified sources.