Human somatosensory evoked responses: Effects of attention and distraction on early components

Previous studies in man have reported increases in the amplitude of late secondary evoked potential components, but not of early primary components, with attention. In this study, somatosensory evoked potentials were recorded over somatosensory cortex in normal volunteers while they were counting stimuli and while they were doing mental arithmetic. A positive wave (P30) recorded over the postcentral gyrus was found to be enhanced when subjects attended to the stimuli. This suggests that differential processing of attended stimuli may begin either prior to or at the level of primary sensory cortex.

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