Effects of externally applied electrical stimulus on brain relationship during isometric contraction of hand muscle

Abstract

Communications exists between the peripheral muscles and the sensorimotor cortex, which controls the movement functions in the brain. There are five brain’s natural oscillations classified as delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma which governed most general dynamics in the brain. It is proven that increased alpha activity can be expected in situations or tasks in which attentional demands require inhibition of non-task relevant processes. Recently, study on effects of counting or ignoring externally applied electrical stimulus while performing motor task has shown that cortico-muscular coherence in the beta band during isometric hand contraction can be enhanced by a electrical stimulus unrelated to the motor task. The finding suggests that cognitive effort is needed to maintain isometric muscle contraction. Since cognitive effort involves functional connections between different brain regions in the brain, further studies are needed to clarify these functional connections between different brain regions. By exploring the C3-EEG coherence, this project study the functional connection between different brain regions and in addition, measure speed of information transfer between brain areas.