Disentangling Somatosensory Evoked Potentials of the Fingers: Limitations and Clinical Potential

Konstantina Kalogianni*, Andreas Daffertshofer, Frans C.T. van der Helm, Alfred C. Schouten, Jan C. de Munck, Gert Kwakkel, Carel G.M. Meskers, Erwin E.H. van Wegen, Aukje S. Andringa, Dirk Hoevenaars, Caroline Winters, Sarah Zandvliet, Teodoro Solis-Escalante, Yuan-Yang, Martijn P. Vlaar, Lena Filatova, Julius P.A. Dewald, Jun Yao, On Behalf Of The 4Deeg Consortium

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

In searching for clinical biomarkers of the somatosensory function, we studied reproducibility of somatosensory potentials (SEP) evoked by finger stimulation in healthy subjects. SEPs induced by electrical stimulation and especially after median nerve stimulation is a method widely used in the literature. It is unclear, however, if the EEG recordings after finger stimulation are reproducible within the same subject. We tested in five healthy subjects the consistency and reproducibility of responses through bootstrapping as well as test–retest recordings. We further evaluated the possibility to discriminate activity of different fingers both at electrode and at source level. The lack of consistency and reproducibility suggest responses to finger stimulation to be unreliable, even with reasonably high signal-to-noise ratio and adequate number of trials. At sources level, somatotopic arrangement of the fingers representation was only found in one of the subjects. Although finding distinct locations of the different fingers activation was possible, our protocol did not allow for non-overlapping dipole representations of the fingers. We conclude that despite its theoretical advantages, we cannot recommend the use of somatosensory potentials evoked by finger stimulation to extract clinical biomarkers.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)498-512
Number of pages15
JournalBrain Topography
Volume31
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2018

Funding

The authors would like to thank Juhani Dabek (PhD) for his help in organizing the experiment and collecting the data. The authors will also like to thank Ines de Castro Fernandes (MSc) for her contribution at the bootstrapping algorithm. In addition to the authors of the present study, the consortium consists of Gert Kwakkel, PhD, Carel G. M. Meskers, MD, PhD, Erwin E. H. van Wegen, PhD, Aukje S. Andringa, MSc, Dirk Hoevenaars, MSc, Caroline Winters, MSc and Sarah Zandvliet, MSc from the VU University Medical Center Amsterdam; Teodoro Solis-Escalante, PhD, Yuan-Yang, PhD, Martijn P. Vlaar, MSc, and Lena Filatova, PDEng, from the Delft University of Technology; Julius P. A. Dewald, PhD, and Jun Yao, MSc, from Northwestern University of Chicago. Collaborators of the 4DEEG consortium are listed in “Acknowledgement”. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

FundersFunder number
Northwestern University of Chicago
Seventh Framework Programme291339
Technische Universiteit Delft

    Keywords

    • Clinical biomarkers
    • EEG
    • Representation of fingers
    • Reproducibility
    • Somatosensory evoked potentials

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