Objectives: This study investigated the relative participation of each cerebral hemisphere during a lateralized task that can be performed by a single hemisphere. This first of two articles focuses on recordings from visual and motor cortices.
Methods: Intracranial event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from occipital and/or peri-Rolandic sites in 8 patients with intractable epilepsy while they performed a lateralized visual oddball task.
Results: As expected, lateralized visual (N150, P200, N250) and motor (N/P400, N/P550) ERP effects were found for occipital and peri-Rolandic recordings, respectively. These reflect an advantage for direct over indirect sensory/motor pathways. More surprisingly, some occipital recordings were paradoxically larger in amplitude for indirect than for direct visual stimulus lateralization, and other occipital sites were sensitive to motor response factors. Likewise, one peri-Rolandic site exhibited a slow wave component that was sensitive to visual sensory factors. There was also pervasive bilaterally-symmetric ERP activity as reflected by P3-like and slow wave-like components.
Conclusions: These findings argue against a hemispheric independence model of information processing. With the exception of initial stimulus input and final response output pathway effects, the processing in this simple task engages both hemispheres in a roughly symmetrical fashion, even though a single hemisphere may be adequate for task performance.