The temporal stability and variability across frequency bands in neural synchrony between primary and secondary somatosensory areas following somatosensory stimulation

OBJECTIVES: To examine the temporal stability and variability of neuronal synchronization among the contralateral primary somatosensory cortex (cSI) and contralateral (cSII) and ipsilateral secondary somatosensory cortex (iSII) in response to median nerve stimulation. METHODS: Both the spontaneous magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals as the pre-stimulus condition and somatosensory evoked magnetic-fields (SEF) were recorded in eleven healthy subjects. We calculated a phase-locking value (PLV) between two areas among cSI, cSII, and iSII in five frequency bands (theta: 5–7 Hz, alpha: 8–12 Hz, beta: 15–29 Hz, gamma-1: 30–59 Hz, and gamma-2: 60–90 Hz), and compared the PLV among in pre-stimulus and stimulus conditions. RESULTS: The PLV between cSI and cSII for the theta band activity varied within 2 s from the stimulus onset. On the other hand, the PLV between cSI and iSII for the alpha band did not vary within 2 s. CONCLUSION: The fluctuation of neuronal synchrony among sensory-related cortices in response to median nerve stimulation depends on the induced frequency band and inter-region. SIGNIFICANCE: This study is the first to report the temporal characteristic of stimulus-driven neural synchrony following somatosensory stimulation.