Taeko ITOH, Ryuji NESHIGE, Nobuki MURAYAMA, Izumi WADA, Tomohiko IGASAKI, Kohta TAKANO

Yanagawa Rehabilitaion Hospital

(Received 9 December 1996; accepted 24 January 1997)

Abstract: Experimental paradigms using non-verbal and verbal auditory stimuli as well as visual stimuli were checked for future clinical application of event-related potentials (ERPs) to evaluation of aphasia and dysarthria, each of which might show different P300 to verbal and non-verbal stimuli. Thirty-five healthy volunteers, five from each decade ranging 20 to 80, were employed in this study. P3 latency increased linealy with age significantly in all four stimuli. Verbal P3 latency was longer than non-verbal regardless of stimulus modality. Auditory non-verbal P3 latency was significantly shorter than visual non-verbal P3, while this was not true with the auditory and visual verbal P3. With regard to amplitude, visual stimuli elicited more positive P3 than auditory. In the topography P3 was widely distributed with its maximum in the vertex regardless of stimulus modality.

Key words: P300, vent-related potential, non-verbal stimulation, verbal stimulation