Hello everyone and especially the neuroscientific fraction. I would like to know in which cases mismatch negativity shows up? I already read in books and studies about dissonances. Another study showed that hearing someone else speak out your name can cause MMN. Also read about babies and MMN. Do you know anything further about this topic? What else can cause MMN? Is it always an outside stimulus? Thank you very much for your time and help to clearify this topic.
Hi the MMN is recorded during passive conditions, which is a main point of this component as it can be recorded "outside attention focus", and is thus really applicable in many clinical conditions... Be careful as in attentive conditions, this MMn, also called N2a, is overlapped by N2b! But you should look at this review paper for more exhaustive explanations:
Näätänen R, Kujala T, Escera C, Baldeweg T, Kreegipuu K, Carlson S, Ponton C. The mismatch negativity (MMN) – A unique window to disturbed central auditory processing in ageing and different clinical conditions. Clin Neurophysiol 2012, 123: 424-458.
Hi Carmen,
there is a great book which include an entire chapter (a tutorial) on mismatch negativity,
which I would like to recommend you here:
Näätänen, R. (1992). Attention and Brain Function. Psychology Press
Best regards,
Michael
To be honest: Näätänen wasn't such a great enlightment as I thought. I couldn't find here anything new which was not published or quoted somewhere else :S
I am still not sure if MMN only results from an outer stimulus. Any opinions??
Dear Carmen,
When I was learning about ERP components the book of Luck helped me a lot.
He devoted a chapter on ERP components, including the MMN. This part unfortunately only covers the auditory MNN. Visual stimuli could also cause an MNN to occur. (see e.g., Stagg et al., 2004; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15094471). Basically anything unexpected can cause an MMN.
Here is a link to the book part about the MMN: http://books.google.nl/books?id=SzavAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=luck+event+related+potential+technique+MMN&source=bl&ots=I9iHDittaL&sig=LTZfijN_vpbucS4pPbrXVV4tRyQ&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=FV2XU9nrIcaOO4m0gKAE&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=luck%20event%20related%20potential%20technique%20MMN&f=false
Näätänen wasn't of much help probably because he focusses on auditory events, which are normally only external. Btw: What kind of internal stimuli were you thinking about? A thought? That will be very hard to measure...
Hope this helps!
Marion
Hello Marion,
thank you very much for your help. I saw your answer some time ago but was too busy with other questions and material to read to check for the links or to answer. I hope I will find some time next week to come back to this really interesting topic.
The initial subject for this question was an EEG of someone who was in a lucid dream state. The proband was counting numbers in this state. And what was showing up was an MMN just the moment the proband started to count. However this MMN did not show up in an awake state.
All in all: I am kind of interested in the question if it is possible to find some kind of "physical laws" for dream environments which make it possible to observe a dream environment just like an exobiologist tries to find laws for life on other planets in order to come to some conclussions what this environment might be like. So I am quite interested in this "room" and it's "physics".
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