Browsing by Author "Shaw, Fu-Zen"

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7-12 Hz high-voltage rhythmic spike discharges in rats evaluated by antiepileptic drugs and flicker stimulation
(2007-01-01)
Shaw, Fu-Zen
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生物科技學系
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腦科學研究中心
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Department of Biological Science and Technology
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Brain Research Center
Paroxysmal 7- to 12-Hz high-voltage rhythmic spike (HVRS) or spike-wave discharges often appear in several particular strains of rats. However, functional hypotheses of these 7-12 Hz high-voltage cortical oscillations (absence seizure vs. idling mu rhythm) are inconclusive. The mu rhythm can be provoked by flicker stimulation (FS) in most people, but FS is less effective at eliciting absence epileptic activity. Therefore FS and antiepileptic drugs were used to verify the role of HVRS activity in Long-Evans rats with spontaneous HVRS discharges and Wistar rats without spontaneous HVRS discharges. The occurrence of HVRS discharges was significantly reduced by antiabsence drugs (ethosuximide, valproic acid, and diazepam) in dose-dependent manners, but high-dose carbamazepine displayed little effect. On the other hand, oscillation frequencies and durations of spontaneous HVRS discharges were not altered by FS. Under asynchronous brain activity, many FSs (> 60%) elicited small-amplitude mu-rhythm-like activity in the barrel cortex concomitant with FS-related rhythms in the occipital cortex and resulted in significant augmentation of 7-12 Hz power in the parietal region. Furthermore, a large portion of FSs (> 60%) revealed increase of 7-12 Hz power of the parietal cortex after ethosuximide administration (100 mg/kg ip) in Long-Evans rats. Similar FS-elicited phenomena also appeared in Wistar rats. Characteristics of FS- elicited mu-rhythm-like activities were consistent with those observed in humans, and they remarkably differed from those of spontaneous HVRS discharges. These results support the hypothesis that HVRS activity in Long-Evans rats may be an absence-like seizure activity rather than the mu rhythm.
A Fully Integrated 16-Channel Closed-Loop Neural-Prosthetic CMOS SoC With Wireless Power and Bidirectional Data Telemetry for Real-Time Efficient Human Epileptic Seizure Control
(2018-11-01)
Cheng, Cheng-Hsiang
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Tsai, Ping-Yuan
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Yang, Tzu-Yi
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Cheng, Wan-Hsueh
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Yen, Ting-Yang
A 16-channel closed-loop neuromodulation system-on-chip (SoC) for human epileptic seizure control is proposed and designed. In the proposed SoC, a 16-channel neural-signal acquisition unit (NSAU), a biosignal processor (BSP), a 16-channel high-voltage-tolerant stimulator (HVTS), and wireless power and bidirectional data telemetry are designed. In the NSAU, the input protection circuit is used to prevent MOSFET from overstressing by the high-voltage stimulations. Hence, NSAUs can share electrodes with stimulators. The auto-reset chopper-stabilized capacitive-coupled instrumentation amplifiers (AR-CSCCIAs) are designed with the chopper-stabilized technique with a new offset reduction loop. The measured input-referred noise is 2.09 mu V-rms and the noise-efficiency factor (NEF) is 3.78. The entropy-and-spectrum seizure detection algorithm is implemented in the BSP with 0.76-s seizure detection latency and 97.8% detection accuracy. When the seizure onset is detected by the BSP, the HVTS with adaptive supply control delivers 0.5-3-mA biphasic current stimulation to suppress the seizure onset. The proposed SoC is powered wirelessly, and the bidirectional data telemetry is realized through the same pair of coils in 13.56 MHz. The downlink data rate is 211 Kb/s with the binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) modulation and a new BPSK demodulator. The uplink data rate is 106 Kb/s with the load-shift keying (LSK) modulation. The proposed SoC is fabricated in a 0.18-mu m CMOS technology and occupies 25 mm(2). Electrical tests have been performed to characterize the SoC performance. In vivo animal experiments using mini-pigs have been performed to successfully verify the closed-loop neuromodulation functions on epileptic seizure suppression.
A Fully Integrated 8-Channel Closed-Loop Neural-Prosthetic CMOS SoC for Real-Time Epileptic Seizure Control
(2014-01-01)
Chen, Wei-Ming
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Chiueh, Herming
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Chen, Tsan-Jieh
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Ho, Chia-Lun
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Jeng, Chi
An 8-channel closed-loop neural-prosthetic SoC is presented for real-time intracranial EEG (iEEG) acquisition, seizure detection, and electrical stimulation in order to suppress epileptic seizures. The SoC is composed of eight energy-efficient analog front-end amplifiers (AFEAs), a 10-b delta-modulated SAR ADC (DMSAR ADC), a configurable bio-signal processor (BSP), and an adaptive high-voltage-tolerant stimulator. A wire-less power-and-data transmission system is also embedded. By leveraging T-connected pseudo-resistors, the high-pass (low-pass) cutoff frequency of the AFEAs can be adjusted from 0.1 to 10 Hz (0.8 to 7 kHz). The noise-efficiency factor (NEF) of the AFEA is 1.77, and the DMSAR ADC achieves an ENOB of 9.57 bits. The BSP extracts the epileptic features from time-domain entropy and frequency spectrum for seizure detection. A constant 30-mu A stimulus current is delivered by closed-loop control. The acquired signals are transmitted with on-off keying (OOK) modulation at 4 Mbps over the MedRadio band for monitoring. A multi-LDO topology is adopted to mitigate the interferences across different power domains. The proposed SoC is fabricated in 0.18-mu m CMOS and occupies 13.47 mm(2). Verified on Long Evans rats, the proposed SoC dissipates 2.8 mW and achieves high detection accuracy 92% within 0.8 s.
A Fully Integrated 8-Channel Closed-Loop Neural-Prosthetic SoC for Real-Time Epileptic Seizure Control
(2013-01-01)
Chen, Wei-Ming
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Chiueh, Herming
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Chen, Tsan-Jieh
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Ho, Chia-Lun
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Jeng, Chi
A Fully Integrated Closed-Loop Neuromodulation SoC with Wireless Power and Bidirectional Data Telemetry for Real-Time Human Epileptic Seizure Control
(2017-01-01)
Cheng, Cheng-Hsiang
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Tsai, Ping-Yuan
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Yang, Tzu-Yi
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Cheng, Wan-Hsueh
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Yen, Ting-Yang
This paper presents a 16-channel closed-loop neuromodulation SoC for human seizure control. The SoC includes a 16-ch signal acquisition unit, a bio-signal processor, a 16-ch adaptive stimulator, and wireless telemetry. The signal acquisition unit achieves 3.78 NEF and shares electrodes with stimulator. The seizure detection latency is 0.76s and delivered 0.5-3mA biphasic current stimulation. The SoC is powered wirelessly and bidirectional data telemetry is realized through the same pair of coils in 13.56MHz.
A novel application of the S-transform in removing powerline interference from biomedical signals
(2009-01-01)
Huang, Chien-Chun
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Liang, Sheng-Fu
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Young, Ming-Shing
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Shaw, Fu-Zen
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智慧型仿生系統研究中心
Powerline interference always disturbs recordings of biomedical signals. Numerous methods have been developed to reduce powerline interference. However, most of these techniques not only reduce the interference but also attenuate the 60 Hz power of the biomedical signals themselves. In the present study, we applied the S-transform, which provides an absolute phase of each frequency in a multi-resolution time-frequency analysis, to reduce 60 Hz interference. According to results from an electrocardiogram (ECG) to which a simulated 60 Hz noise was added, the S-transform de-noising process restored a power spectrum identical to that of the original ECG coincident with a significant reduction in the 60 Hz interference. Moreover, the S-transform de-noised the signal in an intensity-independent manner when reducing the 60 Hz interference. In both a real ECG signal from the MIT database and natural brain activity contaminated with 60 Hz interference, the S-transform also displayed superior merit to a notch filter in the aspect of reducing noise and preserving the signal. Based on these data, a novel application of the S-transform for removing powerline interference is established.
Acid-induced hyperalgesia and anxio-depressive comorbidity in rats
(2014-05-28)
Liu, Yu-Ting
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Shao, Yen-Wen
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Yen, Chen-Tung
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Shaw, Fu-Zen
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生醫電子轉譯研究中心
Fibromyalgia is a prevalent disorder characterized by chronic widespread pain (CWP) and complex comorbid symptoms. A CWP model is developed through repeated unilateral intramuscular injections of acid saline resulting in bilateral mechanical hyperalgesia in rats. The present study aims to evaluate whether both anxious and depressive comorbidities exist in this acid-induced pain model, similarly to patients with CWP syndromes. The anxiety-like behaviors were evaluated using the open field and elevated plus maze tests, and depression-like behaviors were measured by the forced swimming, sucrose consumption, and sucrose preference tests. The pain group receiving acidic saline displayed significantly lower paw withdrawal thresholds for 4 weeks than animals in the vehicle group after repetitive intramuscular injections. The pain group showed a significantly shorter duration of exploring the central zone of the open field and the open arms of the elevated plus maze compared to the vehicle group. The pain group had a significantly lower preference for and consumption of the hedonic sucrose. Moreover, rats with chronic pain showed significantly longer immobility than the vehicle group in the forced swimming test. The results indicate that psychiatric behaviors are exacerbated in the CWP model. This study provides evidence for the validity of the acid-induced pain model analogous to patients with CWP syndromes. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc.
An energy efficient real-time seizure detection method in rats with spontaneous temporal lobe epilepsy
(2013)
Wang, Yu-Lin
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Liang, Sheng-Fu
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Shaw, Fu-Zen
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Huang, Yu-Shin
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Chen, Yin-Lin
The presence of an on-line seizure detection system could drive an antiepileptic stimulator in real time to suppress seizure generation and to enhance the patients' safety and quality of life. In this paper, the continuous long-term EEGs of three Wistar rats with spontaneous temporal lobe seizure were analyzed. We proposed the development of an energy efficient real-time seizure detection method that employs a hierarchical architecture. The first stage was used to fast detect the seizure-like EEG segment, and a classifier was utilized in the second stage for final confirmation. Only when a suspected seizure segment is found, the second stage is activated. With 2-staged architecture, it saved about 99.4% computation energy in the experiment. Therefore, it is useful to improve the longevity of the closed-loop seizure control system. Three classifiers, linear discriminant analysis (LDA), quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA) and support vector machine (SVM), were applied for comparison. From the experimental results, three classifiers yielded the comparable performances. However, considering of the trade-off between detection performances and power consumption, LDA which yielded the 100% detection rate, 0.22 FP/hr, and 1.69 s detection latency is suggested for a portable closed-loop seizure controller.
An EOG-Based Automatic Sleep Scoring System and Its Related Application in Sleep Environmental Control
(2014-01-01)
Kuo, Chih-En
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Liang, Sheng-Fu
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Lee, Yi-Chieh
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Cherng, Fu-Yin
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Lin, Wen-Chieh
Human beings spend approximately one third of their lives sleeping. Conventionally, to evaluate a subjects sleep quality, all-night polysomnogram (PSG) readings are taken and scored by a well-trained expert. Unlike a bulky PSG or EEG recorder on the head, the development of an electrooculogram (EOG)-based automatic sleep-staging system will enable physiological computing systems (PhyCS) to progress toward easy sleep and comfortable monitoring. In this paper, an EOG-based sleep scoring system is proposed. EOG signals are also coupling some of sleep characteristics of EEG signals. Compared to PSG or EEG recordings, EOG has the advantage of easy placement, and can be operated by the user individually at home. The proposed method was found to be more than 83% accurate when compared with the manual scorings applied to sixteen subjects. In addition to sleep-quality evaluation, the proposed system encompasses adaptive brightness control of light according to online monitoring of the users sleep stages. The experiments show that the EOG-based sleep scoring system is a practicable solution for homecare and sleep monitoring due to the advantages of comfortable recording and accurate sleep staging.
Closed-loop seizure control on epileptic rat models
(2011-08-01)
Liang, Sheng-Fu
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Liao, Yi-Cheng
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Shaw, Fu-Zen
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Chang, Da-Wei
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Young, Chung-Ping
In this paper numerous alternative treatments in addition to pharmacological therapy are proposed for their use in epileptic patients. Epileptic animal models can play a crucial role in the performance evaluation of new therapeutic techniques. The objective of this research is to first develop various epileptic rat models; second, develop a portable wireless closed-loop seizure controller including on-line seizure detection and real-time electrical stimulation for seizure elimination; and third, apply the developed seizure controller to the animal models to perform on-line seizure elimination. The closed-loop seizure controller was applied to three Long-Evans rats with spontaneous spike-wave discharges (non-convulsive) and three Long-Evans rats with epileptiform activities induced by pentylenetetrazol (PTZ) injection (convulsive) for evaluation. The seizure detection accuracy is greater than 92% (up to 99%), and averaged seizure detection latency is less than 0.6 s for both spontaneous non-convulsive and PTZ-induced convulsive seizures. The average false stimulation rate is 3.1%. Near 30% of PTZ-induced convulsive seizures need more than two times of 0.5 s electrical stimulation for suppression and 90% of the non-convulsive seizures can be suppressed by only one 0.5 s electrical stimulation.
Design Considerations and Clinical Applications of Closed-Loop Neural Disorder Control SoCs
(2017-01-01)
Wu, Chung-Yu
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Cheng, Cheng-Hsiang
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Ou-Yang, Yi-Huan
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Chen, Chiung-Chu
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Chen, Wei-Ming
This paper presents the closed-loop neural disorder control concept and some design considerations. Two architectures of closed-loop neuromodulation for Parkinson's disease and epileptic seizure are proposed. One is a closed-loop deep brain stimulator, which meets the IEC 60601-1 standard. The other one is an implantable SoC for epileptic seizure control, which is verified by animal experiment.
Detection of Spontaneous Temporal Lobe Epilepsy in Rats by Means of 1-axis Accelerometor Signal
(2013-01-01)
Wang, Yu-Lin
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Liang, Sheng-Fu
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Shaw, Fu-Zen
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Huang, Yu-Hsin
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Wu, Ssu-Yen
Epilepsy is the most common psychological disorders in humans. Patients suffering from epilepsy usually experience behavioral symptoms, such as involuntary movement and rage reaction. Conventional monitoring with electroencephalogram and video is unpleasant for patients and not feasible for long-term monitoring. In this work, a seizure detection system with an accelerometer set on the subject\'s head is proposed to monitor the behavioral activities and to detect the seizure events in subjects. The Wistar rats with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) were used in our experiment. To reduce the computational energy, only one axis signal was utilized for seizure detection. A three-state finite state machine (FSM) was applied to determine the seizure activities, and the temporal features of y-axis ACC signal were calculated for state transition. The results show that our proposed on-line detection method can achieve 100% accuracy with extremely low false alarm rate of 0.035. It has the advantage of easy measurement and good performance for real-world applicability.
Development of an EOG-Based Automatic Sleep-Monitoring Eye Mask
(2015-11-01)
Liang, Sheng-Fu
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Kuo, Chin-En
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Lee, Yi-Chieh
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Lin, Wen-Chieh
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Liu, Yen-Chen
Health care researchers have recently developed several home-based sleep monitoring systems and mobile applications that support healthy sleep by monitoring a user\'s sleep environment, activities, or sleep quality. This study describes the design and evaluation of an electrooculogram (EOG)-based system for an automatic sleep monitoring. Compared with polysomnogram or electroencephalogram recordings, EOG has the advantage of easy placement and can be operated by the users themselves. We also design an intelligent eye mask that is user friendly for measuring sleep stage and quality. Two user experiments were carried out to demonstrate that the proposed system produces valid measurements of sleep stage and sleep quality and has good usability and reliability while not disturbing sleep significantly. These findings suggest that our system can also be applied to long-term sleep monitoring or sleep environment control to improve the user\'s sleep quality and make sleep more comfortable.
EEG correlates of haptic feedback in a visuomotor tracking task
(2012-05-01)
Lin, Chun-Ling
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Shaw, Fu-Zen
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Young, Kuu-Young
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Lin, Chin-Teng
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Jung, Tzyy-Ping
This study investigates the temporal brain dynamics associated with haptic feedback in a visuomotor tracking task. Haptic feedback with deviation-related forces was used throughout tracking experiments in which subjects' behavioral responses and electroencephalogram (EEG) data were simultaneously measured. Independent component analysis was employed to decompose the acquired EEG signals into temporally independent time courses arising from distinct brain sources. Clustering analysis was used to extract independent components that were comparable across participants. The resultant independent brain processes were further analyzed via time-frequency analysis (event-related spectral perturbation) and event-related coherence (ERCOH) to contrast brain activity during tracking experiments with or without haptic feedback. Across subjects, in epochs with haptic feedback, components with equivalent dipoles in or near the right motor region exhibited greater alpha band power suppression. Components with equivalent dipoles in or near the left frontal, central, left motor, right motor, and parietal regions exhibited greater beta-band power suppression, while components with equivalent dipoles in or near the left frontal, left motor, and right motor regions showed greater gamma-band power suppression relative to non-haptic conditions. In contrast, the right occipital component cluster exhibited less beta-band power suppression in epochs with haptic feedback compared to non-haptic conditions. The results of ERCOH analysis of the six component clusters showed that there were significant increases in coherence between different brain networks in response to haptic feedback relative to the coherence observed when haptic feedback was not present. The results of this study provide novel insight into the effects of haptic feedback on the brain and may aid the development of new tools to facilitate the learning of motor skills. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Epileptic Pattern Recognition and Discovery of the Local Field Potential in Amygdala Kindling Process
(2016-03)
Wang, Yu-Lin
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Chen, Yin-Lin
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Su, Alvin Wen-Yu
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Shaw, Fu-Zen
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Liang, Sheng-Fu
Epileptogenesis, which occurs in an epileptic brain, is an important focus for epilepsy. The spectral analysis has been popularly applied to study the electrophysiological activities. However, the resolution is dominated by the window function of the algorithm used and the sample size. In this report, a temporal waveform analysis method is proposed to investigate the relationship of electrophysiological discharges and motor outcomes with a kindling process. Wistar rats were subjected to electrical amygdala kindling to induce temporal lobe epilepsy. During the kindling process, different morphologies of afterdischarges (ADs) were found and a recognition method, using template matching techniques combined with morphological comparators, was developed to automatically detect the epileptic patterns. The recognition results were compared to manually labeled results, and 79%-91% sensitivity was found. In addition, the initial ADs (the first 10 s) of different seizure stages were specifically utilized for recognition, and an average of 85% sensitivity was achieved. Our study provides an alternative viewpoint away from frequency analysis and time-frequency analysis to investigate epileptogenesis in an epileptic brain. The recognition method can be utilized as a preliminary inspection tool to identify remarkable changes in a patient\'s electrophysiological activities for clinical use. Moreover, we demonstrate the feasibility of predicting behavioral seizure stages from the early epileptiform discharges.
Live Demonstration: A Portable Closed-loop Seizure Controller in Freely Moving Rats
(2012)
Liang, Sheng-Fu
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Shaw, Fu-Zen
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Chang, Da-Wei
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Young, Chung-Ping
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Wang, Yu Lin
Modulation of somatosensory evoked potentials during wake-sleep states and spike-wave discharges in the rat
(2006-03-01)
Shaw, Fu-Zen
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Lee, Su-Ying
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Chiu, Ted H.
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生物科技學系
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Department of Biological Science and Technology
Study Objective: To clarify the cortical evoked responses in the primary somatosensory cortex of the rat under states of waking, slow-wave sleep (SWS), paradoxical sleep (PS), and spike-wave discharges (SWDs), which are associated with absence seizure. Design: Somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) in response to single- and paired-pulse stimulations under waking, SWS, PS, and SWDs were compared. SEPs to a single-pulse stimulus with regard to cortical spikes of sleep spindles and SWDs were also evaluated. Participants: Twenty Long Evans rats. Interventions: Single- and paired-pulse innocuous electrical stimulations were applied to the tail of rats with chronically implanted electrodes in the primary somatosensory cortex and neck muscle under waking, SWS, PS, and SWDs. Measurements and Results: SEPs displayed distinct patterns under waking/PS and SWS/SWDs. The short-latency P1-N1 wave of the SEP was severely impeded during SWDs but not in other states, Reduction of the P1-N1 magnitude to the second stimulus of the paired-pulse stimulus for interstimulus intervals of <= 300 milliseconds appeared in waking and PS states, but the decrease occurred only at particular interstimulus intervals under SWS. Interestingly, augmentation was found under SWDs. Moreover, cyclic augmentation of the P1-N1 magnitude was associated with spindle spikes, but cyclic reduction was observed with SWD spikes. Conclusion: Changes in SEPs are not only behavior dependent, but also phase locked onto ongoing brain activity. Distinct short-term plasticity of SEPs during sleep spindles or SWDs may merit further studies for seizure control and tactile information processing.
MULTICHANNEL PLANAR MICROELECTRODE ARRAY FOR SOMATIC MAPPING IN RATS
(2011-12-01)
Shaw, Fu-Zen
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Yang, Tsung-Fu
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Huang, Chien-Chun
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Yeh, Keng-Hung
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Chang, Tao-Chih
Planar electrode array is an important tool to evaluate perceptual or cognitive functions of the cortex and prosthetic applications. Many construction methods have been developed. To maximize the usefulness of an array electrode, a low-cost, precise, and flexible microelectrode array with low man power and short construction duration is crucial. In this study, we introduced an 8 x 8 microelectrode array on a flexible polyimide film through microelectronics fabrication. The array dimension was capable of covering the primary somatosensory cortex of a rat. The microelectrode array was insulated with biocompatible Parylene-C except of microelectrode tip. Each electrode tip was 66 mu m height and separated with 0.5 mm to refine a detail somatic sensory processing. In pentobarbital anesthetized rats, stable spontaneous brain activity was successfully recorded through the electrode array. In addition, positive peaks of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) elicited by stimulating rat's whisker pad, forepaw, hindpaw, and tail were obviously and consistently recorded. Latencies of SEPs increased as caudal part of the body was stimulated. The SEPs from stimulation of 4 body parts revealed different spatiotemporal patterns, which indicated a somatotopic organization of the rat. Our results demonstrated the superiority of the planar microelectrode array on the application of simultaneous recording and analysis of the brain activity in rats.
Spike densities of the amygdala and neocortex reflect progression of kindled motor seizures
(2018-01-01)
Wang, Yu-Lin
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Liang, Sheng-Fu
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Su, Alvin W. Y.
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Shaw, Fu-Zen
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生醫電子轉譯研究中心
Amygdala kindling is a common temporal lobe-like seizure model. In the present study, temporal and spectral analyses of the ictal period were investigated throughout amygdala kindling in response to different behavioral seizures. Right-side amygdala was kindled to induce epileptiform afterdischarges (ADs). ADs of both the frontal cortex and amygdala were analyzed. Powers of the low (0-9 Hz)- and high (12-30 Hz)-frequency bands in response to different behavioral seizures were calculated. Densities of upward and downward peaks of spikes, which reflected information of spike count and spike pattern, throughout kindle-induced ADs were calculated. Progression was seen in the temporal and spectral characteristics of amygdala-kindled ADs in response to behaviors. Numbers of significant differences of all 1-s AD segments between two Racine's seizure stages were significantly higher in upward and downward indexes of the temporal spike than those using the spectral method in both the amygdala and neocortex. Ability for distinguishing seizure stages was significantly higher in temporal spike density of amygdala ADs compared to those of frontal ADs. Our results showed that amygdala kindling caused spectrotemporal changes of activities in the amygdala and frontal cortex. The density of spike-related peaks had better distinguishability in response to behavioral seizures, particularly in a seizure zone of amygdala. The present study provides a new temporal index of spike's peak density to understand progression of motor seizures in the kindling process.
The zona incerta modulates spontaneous spike-wave discharges in the rat
(2013-05-01)
Shaw, Fu-Zen
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Liao, Yi-Fang
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Chen, Ruei-Feng
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Huang, Yu-Hsing
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Lin, Rick C. S.
The contribution of the zona incerta (ZI) of the thalamus on spike-wave discharges (SWDs) was investigated. Chronic recordings of bilateral cortices, bilateral vibrissa muscle, and unilateral ZI were performed in Long-Evans rats to examine the functional role of SWDs. Rhythmic ZI activity appeared at the beginning of SWD and was accompanied by higher-oscillation frequencies and larger spike magnitudes. Bilateral lidocaine injections into the mystacial pads led to a decreased oscillation frequency of SWDs, but the phenomenon of ZI-related spike magnitude enhancement was preserved. Moreover, 800-Hz ZI microstimulation terminates most of the SWDs and whisker twitching (WT; >80%). In contrast, 200-Hz ZI microstimulation selectively stops WTs but not SWDs. Stimulation of the thalamic ventroposteriomedial nucleus showed no obvious effect on terminating SWDs. A unilateral ZI lesion resulted in a significant reduction of 7- to 12-Hz power of both the ipsilateral cortical and contralateral vibrissae muscle activities during SWDs. Intraincertal microinfusion of muscimol showed a significant inhibition on SWDs. Our present data suggest that the ZI actively modulates the SWD magnitude and WT behavior.