Deconvolution of high rate flicker electroretinograms

Flicker electroretinograms are steady-state electroretinograms (ERGs) generated by high rate flash stimuli that produce overlapping periodic responses. When a flash stimulus is delivered at low rates, a transient response named flash ERG (FERG) representing the activation of neural structures within the outer retina is obtained. Although FERGs and flicker ERGs are used in the diagnosis of many retinal diseases, their waveform relationships have not been investigated in detail. This study examines this relationship by extracting transient FERGs from specially generated quasi steady-state flicker and ERGs at stimulation rates above 10 Hz and similarly generated conventional flicker ERGs. The ability to extract the transient FERG responses by deconvolving flicker responses to temporally jittered stimuli at high rates is investigated at varying rates. FERGs were obtained from seven normal subjects stimulated with LED-based displays, delivering steady-state and low jittered quasi steady-state responses at five rates (10, 15, 32, 50, 68 Hz). The deconvolution method enabled a successful extraction of "per stimulus" unit transient ERG responses for all high stimulation rates. The deconvolved FERGs were used successfully to synthesize flicker ERGs obtained at the same high stimulation rates.