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Published on: September 1, 2011
Habituation and dishabituation of P300
Hulusi Kececi1, Yildiz Degirmenci, Selcuk Atakay
1Department of Neurology, Duzce Medical School, Turkey. hulusikececi@ttnet.net.tr
Objective:
We aimed to see the consequences of habituation and posthabituation by means of repeatedly measuring the effects over a longer period.
Method:
The study was performed on 27 healthy volunteers. The event-related potentials were recorded from the Fz, the Cz, and the Pz electrode sites. The rare tone-frequent tone probability ratio was 20%. All subjects were asked to press a button when they heard a rare tone. The test was continued until 20 artifact-free rare tones were averaged, which was accepted as 1 trial block. After 10 trial blocks were obtained in a sequential manner, the test was completed.
Result:
This study has indicated that P300 amplitudes decrease with repeated stimulations, that is, there is a habituation period. As the test continues, the speed of amplitude decrease slows down and after a while it even starts to increase: that is, a dishabituation occurs.
Conclusions:
It is very likely that this habituation relates to a period of learning and dishabituation relates to a period of mental fatigue. In these processes, changes of amplitude and latency values reflect changes in amount of neuronal activation.
