Fronto-parietal evoked potential synchronization is increased during mental rotation.

We used steady state visually evoked potential event related partial coherence (SSVEP-ERPC) to examine the SSVEP synchronization between brain regions while 22 males undertook a sequential version of the Shepard and Metzler mental rotation task. Compared to the 60 degrees rotation, the 180 degrees rotation was associated with increased synchronization between bilateral prefrontal and parieto-occipital sites, between left frontal and right parietal sites and between bilateral parietal and occipital sites. We suggest that the increased synchronization between prefrontal and parieto-occipital regions may be associated with the working memory components of the task, while the left frontal to right parietal synchronization may represent the increased interaction between these regions thought to occur in a variety of visuo-motor tasks. Copyright 2003 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins