A high-intensity, goggle-mounted flash stimulator for short-latency visual evoked potentials.
The few studies that have been done on short-latency, subcortical visual evoked potentials (SVEPs) have all used stroboscopic flashes as the evoking stimulus. The dimensions of the stimulator, the acoustical artifacts and the photic spread to the examination room limited the use of SVEPs to research laboratories. With the advent of high-efficiency light-emitting diodes (LEDs), high-intensity flashes can now be generated from goggle-mounted LEDs. In this study, a goggle-mounted high-intensity stimulator was constructed and its flashes used to evoke SVEPs. The reproducibility of SVEPs across subjects and the ease of using the high-intensity LED flash stimulator make them a promising candidate for testing subcortical visual pathway function in the operating room.
Visualization of the information flow through human oculomotor cortical regions by transcranial magnetic stimulation.
We investigated the topography of human cortical activation during an antisaccade task by focal transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). We used a figure-eight shaped coil, with the stimulus intensity set just above the threshold for activation of the hand motor areas but weak enough not to elicit blinks. TMS was delivered at various time intervals (80, 100, and 120 ms) after target presentation over various sites on the scalp while the subjects performed the antisaccade task. It was possible to elicit a mild but significant delay in saccade onset over 1) the frontal regions (a region 2-4 cm anterior and 2-4 cm lateral to hand motor area) and 2) posterior parietal regions (6-8 cm posterior and 0-4 cm lateral to hand motor area) regardless of which hemisphere was stimulated. The frontal regions were assumed to correspond to a cortical region including the frontal eye fields (FEFs), whereas the parietal regions were assumed to represent a wide region that includes the posterior parietal cortices (PPCs). The regions inducing the delay shifted from the posterior parietal regions at an earlier interval (80 ms) to the frontal regions at a later interval (100 ms), which suggested an information flow from posterior to anterior cortical regions during the presaccadic period. At 120 ms, the effect of TMS over the frontal regions still persisted but was greatly diminished. Erroneous prosaccades to the presented target were elicited over a wide cortical region including the frontal and posterior parietal regions, which again showed a forward shift with time. However, the distribution of effective regions exhibited a clear contralateral predominance in terms of saccade direction. Our technique provides a useful method not only for detecting the topography of cortical regions active during saccadic eye movement, but also for constructing a physiological map to visualize the temporal evolution of functional activities in the relevant cortical regions.
Simulation study of high power microwave generation by virtual cathode oscillation in coaxial vircator
Summary form only given, as follows. We have numerically simulated the high power microwave generation by virtual cathode oscillation in a coaxial vircator with 3 dimensional PIC code Magic. It is noted that the coaxial vircator has the advantage of an enhancement of power efficiency and gaining of narrow bandwidth frequency. The study is focused on the design of a diode structure for a coaxial vircator suitable for Chundoong IREB pulser (Max. 600 kV, 85 kA, 60 ns). It consists of a center annular cathode, a cylindrical meshed-anode and a reflector. The simulation results showed that the coaxial vircator can indeed be operated at the selected frequency with the narrow bandwidth and the microwave output power strongly depends on the position and geometry of the reflector. From this simulation results we expect that the maximum microwave output power will be obtained by the reflector of 4 cm in width and also 4 cm in distance away from the IREB, where the resonant frequency of microwave from coaxial vircator is simulated to be 6.577 GHz.