Douglas Cheyne

University of Toronto | U of T · Department of Medical Imaging

To generate a hand-specific reach plan, the brain must integrate hand-specific signals with the desired movement strategy. Although various neurophysiology / imaging studies have investigated hand-target interactions in simple reach-to-target tasks, the whole-brain timing and distribution of this process remain unclear, especially for more complex,...

Articulography and functional neuroimaging are two major tools for studying the neurobiology of speech production. Until recently, however, it has generally not been possible to use both in the same experimental setup because of technical incompatibilities between the two methodologies. Here we describe results from a novel articulography system du...

To generate a hand-specific reach plan, the brain must integrate hand-specific signals with the desired movement strategy. Although various neurophysiology / imaging studies have investigated hand-target interactions in simple reach-to-target tasks, the whole-brain timing and distribution of this process remain unclear, especially for more complex,...

Background: Dystonia is one of the most common movement disorders after pediatric basal ganglia stroke, causing significant disability. It presents several months post stroke suggesting a role of maladaptive neuroplasticity in its manifestation. Children with dystonia show additional difficulties in intelligence (IQ), academics, and cognitive inhib...

Cognitive control of action is associated with conscious effort and is hypothesised to be reflected by increased frontal theta activity. However, the functional role of these increases in theta power, and how they contribute to cognitive control remains unknown. We conducted an MEG study to test the hypothesis that frontal theta oscillations intera...

Background Children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy (HCP) experience upper limb somatosensory and motor deficits. While constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) improves motor function, its impact on somatosensory function remains under-investigated. Objective To evaluate somatosensory perception and related brain responses in children with HCP,...

Purpose The planning and execution of motor behaviors require coordination of neurons that are established through synchronization of neural activity. Movements are typically preceded by event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the beta range (15–30 Hz) primarily localized in the motor cortex, while movement onset is associated with event-related s...

The basal ganglia-thalamocortical (BGTC) loop may underlie speech deficits in developmental stuttering. In this study, we investigated the relationship between abnormal cortical neural oscillations and structural integrity alterations in adults who stutter (AWS) using a novel magnetoencephalography (MEG) guided tractography approach. Beta oscillati...

Hippocampal rhythms are important for spatial navigation. This study examined whether gender differences in human navigation performance are associated with differences in hippocampal rhythms. We measured brain activities in males and females with whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG), while they performed a virtual Morris water maze task. Behavi...

Recent evidence shows that hippocampal theta oscillations, usually linked to memory and navigation, are also observed during online language processing, suggesting a shared neurophysiological mechanism between language and memory. However, it remains to be established what specific roles hippocampal theta oscillations may play in language, and whet...

Articulography and functional neuroimaging are two major tools for studying the neurobiology of speech production. Until now, however, it has generally not been possible to use both in the same experimental setup because of technical incompatibilities between the two methodologies. Here we describe results from a novel articulography system dubbed...

Our ability to control and inhibit automatic behaviors is crucial for negotiating complex environments, all of which require rapid communication between sensory, motor, and cognitive networks. Here, we measured neuromagnetic brain activity to investigate the neural timing of cortical areas needed for inhibitory control, while 14 healthy young adult...

In a previous study we reported the first measurements of pre-movement and sensorimotor cortex activity in preschool age children (ages 3-5 years) using a customized paediatric MEG system. Movement-related activity in the sensorimotor cortex differed from that typically observed in adults, suggesting that maturation of cortical motor networks was s...

Cognitive control of behavior is often accompanied by theta-band activity in the frontal cortex, and is crucial for overriding habits and producing desired actions. However, the functional role of theta activity in controlled behavior remains to be determined. Here, we used a behavioral task (Isabella et al., 2019) that covertly manipulated the abi...

Movement planning involves transforming the sensory signals into a command in motor coordinates. Surprisingly, the real-time dynamics of sensorimotor transformations at the whole brain level remain unknown, in part due to the spatiotemporal limitations of fMRI and neurophysiological recordings. Here, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG)during pro-/...

ADHD is associated with altered dopamine regulated reinforcement learning on prediction errors. Despite evidence of categorically altered error processing in ADHD, neuroimaging advances have largely investigated models of normal reinforcement learning in greater detail. Further, although reinforcement leaning critically relies on ventral striatum e...

Confirmatory analysis of raphe nucleus seed location. Whole brain corrected correlations (red/yellow = positive, blue = negative correlation) with raphe nucleus seed during post-error slowing in the same regions and direction (positive/negative) as in [45]. Correlations were weaker or absent in ADHD except in anterior insula, where correlations wer...

Seed activities related to Table 1. (A) Deactivation of dorsal striatum in TD adolescents during error detection (TD Detect). (B) Deactivation of ventral pallidum in TD during post-error slowing (TD PES). (C) Activation of substantia nigra in TD during post-error slowing (TD PES). (D) Deactivation of raphe nucleus in TD adolescents during post-erro...

Correlations in replication sample from Table 7. (A) Correlation of dorsal striatum (DS) during error detection (Detect) with response-phase (Go) activities in right middle frontal gyrus (R MFG) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). (B) Correlation of ventral pallidum with dorsal pallidum and substantia nigra (SN) during post-error slowing (PES). (C)...

Confirmatory analysis of SN seed location. Whole brain corrected correlations (red/yellow = positive, blue = negative correlation) with SN seed during post-error slowing. In TD, SN correlated with bilateral limbic, striatal and neocortical regions, consistent with known ascending DA pathways. ADHD showed stronger correlations in posterior networks...

Correlations with dorsal striatum and ventral pallidum related to Table 2. (A) Correlations of dorsal striatum during error detection with right middle frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule during response-phases. (B) Correlations of ventral pallidum with dorsal pallidum, substantia nigra and amygdala during error detection. Correlation maps p...

Correlations with substantia nigra related to Table 3. Correlation of substantia nigra during error detection with response-phase (A) and with error detection maps (B). Correlation of substantia nigra during post-error slowing with post-error slowing (C) and response-phase (D) maps. Correlation maps portray B1 estimates after whole brain correction...

Correlations with raphe nucleus from Table 4, with LC from Table 5, and with medial septal nuclei from Table 6. (A) Correlation of raphe nucleus during post-error slowing with post-error slowing (A) and response-phase maps (B). Correlation of locus coeruleus activity during post-error with post-error slowing (C) and with response-phase maps (D). Co...

Aim To report clinical outcomes and evidence of corneal innervation in patients with neurotrophic keratopathy (NK) treated with minimally invasive corneal neurotisation (MICN) using a sural nerve graft and donor sensory nerves from the face. Methods Patients undergoing MICN at The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada were prospectively recr...

In previous studies we have provided evidence that performance in speeded response tasks with infrequent target stimuli reflects both automatic and controlled cognitive processes, based on differences in reaction time (RT) and task-related brain responses (Cheyne et al. 2012, Isabella et al. 2015). Here we test the hypothesis that such shifts in co...

In a previous MEG study of movement-related brain activity in preschool age children, we reported that pre-movement fields and sensorimotor cortex oscillations differed from those typically observed in adults, suggesting that maturation of cortical motor networks is still incomplete by late preschool age (Cheyne et al., 2014). Here we describe the...

Brain imaging research has revealed important functional and structural differences between the brains for people who stutter and typically fluent speakers. These differences have allowed researchers to better understand the onset and development of stuttering in children and adults. However, until recently it has been difficult if not impossible f...

ADHD is associated with altered dopamine regulated reinforcement learning on prediction errors. Despite evidence of categorically altered error processing in ADHD, neuroimaging advances have largely investigated models of normal reinforcement learning in greater detail. Further, although reinforcement leaning critically relies on ventral striatum e...

BrainWave is an easy-to-use Matlab toolbox for the analysis of magnetoencephalography data. It provides a graphical user interface for performing minimum-variance beamforming analysis with rapid and interactive visualization of evoked and induced brain activity. This article provides an overview of the main features of BrainWave with a step-by-step...

In rodents, hippocampal cell assemblies formed during learning of a navigation task are observed to re-emerge during resting (offline) periods, accompanied by high-frequency oscillations (HFOs). This phenomenon is believed to reflect mechanisms for strengthening newly-formed memory traces. Using magnetoencephalography recordings and a beamforming s...

Hippocampal rhythms are believed to support crucial cognitive processes including memory, navigation and language. Due to the location of the hippocampus deep in the brain, studying hippocampal rhythms using non-invasive magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings has generally been assumed to be methodologically challenging. However, with the advent o...

Planning an accurate reach involves the transformation of the neural representation of target location in sensory coordinates into a command for hand motion in motor coordinates. Although imaging techniques such as fMRI reveal the cortical topography of such transformations, and neurophysiological recordings provide local dynamics, we do not yet kn...

In rodents, hippocampal cell assemblies formed during learning of a navigation task are observed to re-emerge during resting (offline) periods, accompanied by high-frequency oscillations (HFOs). This phenomenon is believed to reflect mechanisms for strengthening newly-formed memory traces. Using magnetoencephalography recordings and a beamforming s...

Purpose: Recent literature on speech production in adults who stutter (AWS) has begun to investigate the neural mechanisms characterizing speech-motor preparation prior to speech onset. Compelling evidence has suggested that stuttering is associated with atypical processing within cortical and sub-cortical motor networks, particularly in the beta...

Low frequency theta band oscillations (4-8 Hz) are thought to provide a timing mechanism for hippocampal place cell firing and to mediate the formation of spatial memory. In rodents, hippocampal theta has been shown to play an important role in encoding a new environment during spatial navigation, but a similar functional role of hippocampal theta...

Low frequency theta band oscillations (4–8 Hz) are thought to provide a timing mechanism for hippocampal place cell firing and to mediate the formation of spatial memory. In rodents, hippocampal theta has been shown to play an important role in encoding a new environment during spatial navigation, but a similar functional role of hippocampal theta...

Adults who stutter (AWS) have demonstrated atypical coordination of motor and sensory regions during speech production. Yet little is known of the speech-motor network in AWS in the brief time window preceding audible speech onset. The purpose of the current study was to characterize neural oscillations in the speech-motor network during preparatio...

The short-term retention of tactile information is less studied than the visual and auditory modalities. Using load-dependent changes in brain responses measured with magnetoencephalography, we explored the areas likely involved in the retention of tactile patterns on the hand, in different time windows during the retention interval of a simple mem...

Objective: We describe a novel motion tracking system, called MASK (Magnetoarticulography for the Assessment of Speech Kinematics) designed to track detailed orofacial movements during magnetoencephalographic (MEG) measures of human brain activity. A three-dimensional electromagnetic tracking method was employed using lightweight coils energized w...

Often we must balance being prepared to act quickly with being prepared to suddenly stop. The stop signal task (SST) is widely used to study inhibitory control, and provides a measure of the speed of the stop process that is robust to changes in subjects' response strategy. Previous studies have shown that preparation affects inhibition. We used fM...

BACKGROUND Children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy (HCP) experience upper limb sensory processing and motor deficits. Current interventions focus on motor deficits while sensory impairments are overlooked. Movement and sensation are intimately related and theories on motor behavior support addressing both. While constraint-induced movement therapy...

We examined sensorimotor brain activity associated with voluntary movements in preschool children using a customized pediatric MEG system. A videogame-like task was used to generate self-initiated right or left index finger movements in seventeen healthy right-handed subjects (8 female, ages 3.2 to 4.8 years). We successfully identified spatiotempo...

Objective: To assess the reliability of MEG source imaging (MSI) of anterior temporal spikes through detailed analysis of the localization and orientation of source solutions obtained for a large number of spikes that were separately confirmed by intracranial EEG to be focally generated within a single, well-characterized spike focus. Methods: MSI...

Objective: To assess the reliability and validity of EEG source localization of anterior temporal lobe spikes through direct comparison with simultaneously recorded intracranial spike fields. Methods: We recently showed that classical anterior temporal spikes recorded in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) are non-propagated potentials generated i...

The human motor cortex exhibits transient bursts of high frequency gamma oscillations in the 60-90 Hz range during movement. It has been proposed that gamma oscillations generally reflect local intracortical activity. However, movement-evoked gamma is observed simultaneously in both cortical and subcortical (basal ganglia) structures and thus appea...

This commentary is on the original article by Juenger et al. on pages of this issue.

In this paper we propose an agglomerative hierarchical clustering Ward's algorithm in tandem with the Affinity Propagation algorithm to reliably localize active brain regions from magnetoencephalography (MEG) brain signals. Reliable localization of brain areas with MEG has been difficult due to variations in signal strength, and the spatial extent...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the utility of an event-related beamforming (ERB) algorithm in source localization of interictal discharges. METHODS: We analyzed interictal magnetoencephalography data in 35 children with intractable neocortical epilepsy. We used a spatiotemporal beamforming method to estimate the spatial distribution of source power in indi...

Objective: To assess whether existing noninvasive source localization techniques can provide valid solutions for large extended cortical sources we tested the capability of various methods of EEG source imaging (ESI) and magnetic source imaging (MSI) to localize the large superficial cortical generator of the human K-complex. Methods: We recentl...

The human sensorimotor cortex demonstrates a variety of oscillatory activity that is strongly modulated by movement and somatosensory input. Studies using scalp EEG and intracranial electrical recordings have provided much of our current knowledge regarding the frequency and temporal specificity of these sensorimotor rhythms and their relationship...

In a recent MEG study, we found that the ability to switch motor responses to infrequent targets in a rapidly presented stream of digits (switch task) was associated with increased right frontal theta activity prior to movement and early motor preparation reflected by decreases in beta oscillations in motor cortex (Cheyne et al., submitted). We int...

Neuromagnetic source reconstruction based on the minimum-variance beamformer algorithm has become an increasingly popular method for the localization of brain activity from MEG data. We present a Matlab-based toolbox (BrainWave - Beamformer Reconstruction And INteractive WAveform Visualization Environment) that provides a user-friendly graphical us...

We used whole-head magnetoencephalography to investigate cortical activity during two oromotor activities foundational to speech production. 13 adults performed mouth opening and phoneme (/pa/) production tasks to a visual cue. Jaw movements were tracked with an ultrasound-emitting device. Trials were time-locked to both stimulus onset and peak of...

Human action involves a combination of controlled and automatic behavior. These processes may interact in tasks requiring rapid response selection or inhibition, where temporal constraints preclude timely intervention by conscious, controlled processes over automatized prepotent responses. Such contexts tend to produce frequent errors, but also rap...

Purpose: We studied the relationship between source localization of interictal discharges using an event-related beamformer (ERB), equivalent current dipole analysis and the ictal onset zone on intracranial video EEG (IVEEG). Methods: We acquired interictal MEG data using a whole-head 151channel gradiometer system in 35 children with intractable ne...

Top-down voluntary attention modulates the amplitude of magnetic evoked fields in the human visual cortex. Whether such modulation is flexible enough to adapt to the demands of complex tasks in which abstract rules must be applied to select a target in the presence of distracters remains unclear. We recorded brain neuromagnetic activity using whole...

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) source analysis has largely relied on spherical conductor models of the head to simplify forward calculations of the brain's magnetic field. Multiple- (or overlapping, local) sphere models, where an optimal sphere is selected for each sensor, are considered an improvement over single-sphere models and are computationall...

Goal: We used whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate neural areas involved in two simple oromotor activities foundational to language production. Methods: 12 adults performed mouth opening and phoneme (/pa/) production tasks in separate blocks to a visual cue (ISI ~3.5sec). Jaw movements were tracked with an ultrasound-emitting devi...

We utilized the high temporal resolution, whole head coverage and novel analysis methodology of magnetoencephalography (MEG) to record the dynamics of cerebellar activation during focal motor seizures. We analyzed ictal MEG data from a four-year old using an event-related beamformer to localize and display ictal changes over the motor cortex and ce...

Auditory responses to speech sounds that are self-initiated are suppressed compared to responses to the same speech sounds during passive listening. This phenomenon is referred to as speech-induced suppression, a potentially important feedback-mediated speech-motor control process. In an earlier study, we found that both adults who do and do not st...