1/f noise outperforms white noise in sensitizing baroreflex function in the human brain.

We show that externally added 1/f noise more effectively sensitizes the baroreflex centers in the human brain than white noise. We examined the compensatory heart rate response to a weak periodic signal introduced via venous blood pressure receptors while adding 1/f or white noise with the same variance to the brain stem through bilateral cutaneous stimulation of the vestibular afferents. In both cases, this noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation optimized covariance between the weak input signals and the heart rate responses. However, the optimal level with 1/f noise was significantly lower than with white noise, suggesting a functional benefit of 1/f noise for neuronal information transfer in the brain.

[1]  Hanspeter Herzel,et al.  Bifurcations in a nonlinear model of the baroreceptor-cardiac reflex , 1998 .

[2]  P. Larsen,et al.  Long-term correlations in the spike trains of medullary sympathetic neurons. , 2001, Journal of neurophysiology.

[3]  J. Goldberg,et al.  Relation between discharge regularity and responses to externally applied galvanic currents in vestibular nerve afferents of the squirrel monkey. , 1984, Journal of neurophysiology.

[4]  J. J. Collins,et al.  Enhancing human balance control with galvanic vestibular stimulation , 2001, Biological Cybernetics.

[5]  B. J. Yates,et al.  Integration of somatic and visceral inputs by the brainstem Functional considerations , 1998, Experimental Brain Research.

[6]  Bruce J. West,et al.  ON THE UBIQUITY OF 1/f NOISE , 1989 .

[7]  E. Evans,et al.  Enhancement of vowel coding for cochlear implants by addition of noise , 1996, Nature Medicine.

[8]  M. Nakao,et al.  An interpretation of 1/f fluctuations in neuronal spike trains during dream sleep , 2004, Biological Cybernetics.

[9]  Yoshiharu Yamamoto,et al.  Noise-induced compensation for postural hypotension in primary autonomic failure , 2002, Brain Research.

[10]  Malvin C. Teich Fractal character of the auditory neural spike train , 1989 .

[11]  W. Stacey,et al.  Stochastic resonance improves signal detection in hippocampal CA1 neurons. , 2000, Journal of neurophysiology.

[12]  Ditto,et al.  Stochastic Resonance in a Neuronal Network from Mammalian Brain. , 1996, Physical review letters.

[13]  W. Cleveland Robust Locally Weighted Regression and Smoothing Scatterplots , 1979 .

[14]  D Nozaki,et al.  Functional stochastic resonance in the human brain: noise induced sensitization of baroreflex system. , 2000, Physical review letters.

[15]  D Nozaki,et al.  Mechanism of stochastic resonance enhancement in neuronal models driven by 1/f noise. , 1999, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics.

[16]  Kazuhiro Shinosaki,et al.  Changes in the fractal dimension of alpha envelope from wakefulness to drowsiness in the human electroencephalogram , 1994, Neuroscience Letters.

[17]  Malte Meesmann,et al.  Further study on 1/f fluctuations observed in central single neurons during REM sleep , 2004, Biological Cybernetics.

[18]  Frank Moss,et al.  Noise enhancement of information transfer in crayfish mechanoreceptors by stochastic resonance , 1993, Nature.

[19]  Keiichi Kitajo,et al.  Behavioral stochastic resonance within the human brain. , 2003, Physical review letters.

[20]  Mitsuaki Yamamoto,et al.  Markov-dependency and spectral analyses on spike-counts in mesencephalic reticular neurons during sleep and attentive states , 1986, Brain Research.

[21]  M. Shlesinger,et al.  Fractal Time and 1/f Noise in Complex Systems , 1987 .

[22]  King-Ning Tu,et al.  Dopant activation of heavily doped silicon-on-insulator by high density currents , 1999 .

[23]  S. Cass,et al.  Effects of bilateral vestibular lesions on orthostatic tolerance in awake cats. , 1999, Journal of applied physiology.

[24]  J. Collins,et al.  Open-loop and closed-loop control of posture: A random-walk analysis of center-of-pressure trajectories , 2004, Experimental Brain Research.

[25]  Thomas T. Imhoff,et al.  Noise-enhanced information transmission in rat SA1 cutaneous mechanoreceptors via aperiodic stochastic resonance. , 1996, Journal of neurophysiology.

[26]  John P. Miller,et al.  Broadband neural encoding in the cricket cereal sensory system enhanced by stochastic resonance , 1996, Nature.

[27]  Daichi Nozaki,et al.  Enhancement of stochastic resonance in a FitzHugh-Nagumo neuronal model driven by colored noise , 1998 .

[28]  Peter Grigg,et al.  Effects of Colored Noise on Stochastic Resonance in Sensory Neurons , 1999 .

[29]  Kimitaka Nakazawa,et al.  Fractal correlation in human H-reflex , 1990, Experimental Brain Research.