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Operant Controlled Neural Event: Formal and Systematic Approach to Electrical Coding of Behavior in Brain

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Check out this Knowledge Base article from StressTherapy Solutions: Operant Controlled Neural Event: Formal and Systematic Approach to Electrical Coding of Behavior in Brain.

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Study at a glance

Area
QEEG, Methods & Mechanisms
Study type
Pilot / open study
Authors
Fox SS, Rudell AP
Journal
Science
Year
1968
Protocol
operant conditioning of evoked potential components

Key findings

  • Proposes operant conditioning of prespecified brain activity as a systematic way to study how the brain encodes behavior
  • Brain electrical activity, rather than an outward behavior, served as the criterion for reinforcement
  • Two studies showed acquisition of two mutually exclusive states that selectively altered evoked potential components

DOI 10.1126/science.162.3859.1299 → PubMed 5699208 →

An early report arguing that studies linking brain electrical activity to behavior suffer from high variability because the behaviors, recording sites and wave measures are chosen arbitrarily. The authors propose instead making a prespecified feature of brain activity itself the criterion for reinforcement (operant control of a neural event). In two studies using this approach, two mutually exclusive behaviors or states were acquired, each selectively changing components of the evoked potential.