Effects of visual contrast on visual evoked potentials and Doppler signal

We studied visually evoked cerebral blood flow responses (VEFR) and visual evoked potentials (VEP) to different visual contrasts and analysed the relationship between them. The records were made from 35 healthy volunteers aged 38.6 +/- 10.1 years. The stimulus was a black-and-white checkerboard with visual contrasts (VC) of 1%, 10% and 100%. The VEFR were measured in the posterior cerebral artery using transcranial Doppler, and the VEP were recorded from the occipital leads. We found the relationship between visual contrast and VEFR (r = 0.79, P < 0.01) as well as between visual contrast and VEP (r = 0.71, P < 0.01). We also found moderate association between the VEP and the VEFR (r = 0.69, P < 0.01). The analysis of the regression slopes between two different age subgroups (P < 0.01) did not show a significant difference (P = 0.020). We concluded that a simultaneous recording of VEFR and VEP to visual contrasts could allow an assessment of neurovascular coupling in humans.