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Updated: Jun 12, 2026
A Method for Tracking the Time Evolution of Steady-State Evoked Potentials
Published on: May 25, 2019
Effects of Panax quinquefolius (American ginseng) on the steady state visually evoked potential during cognitive
David J White1, David A Camfield1, Anastasia Ossoukhova1
1Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Objective:
To investigate the effects of acute Panax quinquefolius (American ginseng) administration on steady state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs) during completion of working memory and continuous performance tasks.
Methods:
A randomised, double-blind, placebo controlled, balanced, cross-over trial was conducted in middle-aged volunteers aged between 40 and 60 years. Participants were administered 200 mg P. quinquefolius and placebo on two separate testing sessions. Six-h post-dose participants completed spatial working memory (SWM) and continuous performance (CP) tasks while SSVEP from a diffuse task-irrelevant 13 Hz flicker was recorded.
Results:
During SWM retrieval, P. quinquefolius was associated with significantly reduced prefrontal SSVEP latency. There were no significant treatment effects on CP nor behavioural performance of either task.
Conclusions:
These findings provide preliminary evidence of increased recruitment of prefrontal brain regions during working memory processing following a single acute dose of P. quinquefolius.
