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Event-related potentials in patients with multiple lacunar infarcts
H Tachibana1, K Toda, M Sugita
1Fifth Department of Internal Medicine, Hyogo College of Medicine, Nishinomiya, Japan.
Gerontology
|January 1, 1992
Summary
Multiple lacunar infarcts prolonged event-related potential (ERP) non-target P3 latency, indicating impaired automatic processing. Controlled processing, reflected by target P3, remained largely unaffected in these patients.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neurology
Background:
- Multiple lacunar infarcts can affect cognitive functions.
- Event-related potentials (ERPs) are valuable tools for studying cognitive processing.
- P300 ERP component is sensitive to attentional and cognitive load.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate event-related potentials (ERPs) in patients with multiple lacunar infarcts.
- To differentiate the impact of lacunar infarcts on automatic versus controlled cognitive processing.
Main Methods:
- Studied 31 patients with multiple lacunar infarcts and 15 age-equivalent normal subjects.
- Recorded ERPs during visual discrimination tasks with attended and unattended stimuli.
- Analyzed P300 responses to infrequent non-target (non-target P3) and target stimuli (target P3).
Main Results:
- Patients with multiple lacunar infarcts showed significantly longer non-target P3 latency compared to controls.
- No significant differences in target P3 latency were observed between patients and normal subjects.
- Results suggest differential impact on automatic and controlled processing.
Conclusions:
- Multiple lacunar infarcts are associated with impaired automatic processing, as evidenced by prolonged non-target P3 latency.
- Controlled processing, reflected by target P3, appears less affected by multiple lacunar infarcts.
- Findings contribute to understanding the cognitive consequences of cerebrovascular disease.