Patterns of stimulus- and self-induced slow brain potentials--a sign of task-specific preparation.

Does the scalp distribution of slow shifts in human brain potentials depend upon the processing demands? The question was approached applying two different paradigms. In the first study, the anticipation of haptic tasks presented to either of the hands was found to give rise to a contralateral slow negative brain potential (SP). The second study demonstrated that comparable hemisphere-specific patterns can be self-induced by means of biofeedback training. These results suggest that negative SPs (like the CNV) indicate preactivation of those brain-regions that process the expected task.