Brain stimulation with 40 Hz heterochromatic flicker extended beyond red, green, and blue

作者：Mark Alexander Henney, Marcus Carstensen, Martin William Thorning‐Schmidt, Marta Kubińska, Manja Gersholm Grønberg, Mai Nguyen, Kristoffer H. Madsen, Line Katrine Harder Clemmensen, Paul Michael Petersen · 发表于：Scientific Reports · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1038/s41598-024-52679-z · 被引用次数：10 · 研究领域：Photoreceptor and optogenetics research、Neuroscience and Neural Engineering、EEG and Brain-Computer Interfaces

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with electrophysiological changes in the brain. Pre-clinical and early clinical trials have shown promising results for the possible therapy of AD with 40 Hz neurostimulation. The most notable findings used stroboscopic flicker, but this technique poses an inherent barrier for human applications due to its visible flickering and resulting high level of perceived discomfort. Therefore, alternative options should be investigated for entraining 40 Hz brain activity with light sources that appear less flickering. Previously, chromatic flicker based on red, green, and blue (RGB) have been studied in the context of brain-computer interfaces, but this is an incomplete representation of the colours in the visual spectrum. This study introduces a new kind of heterochromatic flicker based on spectral combinations of blue, cyan, green, lime, amber, and red (BCGLAR). These combinations are investigated by the steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) response from the flicker with an aim of optimising the choice of 40 Hz light stimulation with spectrally similar colour combinations in BCGLAR space. Thirty healthy young volunteers were stimulated with heterochromatic flicker in an electroencephalography experiment with randomised complete block design. Responses were quantified as the 40 Hz signal-to-noise ratio and analysed using mixed linear models. The size of the SSVEP response to heterochromatic flicker is dependent on colour combinations a...