The effect of motor-response-deprivation on contingent negative variation (CNV): the morphology

Eighty-four healthy subjects (47 males and 37 females) ranging in age between 9 and 76 years were employed in a study of the relations of the CNV morphology with the CNV amplitude, the reaction time and the MPI score. The results were as follows: 1. We classified a new type of Plateau (P) in the negative-going limb (NGL) types. 2. There was no sex difference in the NGL types, but the positive-going limb (PGL) types were influenced by age, and the type II tended to increase between the ages of 40--59 years old. 3. As a whole, the type B in the NGL and the type I in the PGL were most prominent regardless of age, session or paradigm. The type FD was very rare and appeared only in the session N. The types III and IV failed to be found in any healthy subjects. 4. Using the matched control study, the relations of the morphology with the CNV amplitude, the reaction time and the MPI score were analyzed. The conventional CNV amplitude in the sessions C and R increased in the sequences of the types B-A-P and the types I-II, and the CNV amplitudes in the session N increased in the sequences of the types A-B-P and II-I. The reaction time in the sessions C and R tended to prolong in the sequences of the types P-B-A and II-I. With the MPI, as the N-score increased with a decrease of the E-score, the NGL types changed from the type P to A through B in the conventional CNV and from the type A to B or P in the session N, while the PGL types changed from the type I to II in the conventional CNV and from the type II to I in the session N. 5. We suggest that there is a twofold arousal process, specific (task-relevant) and general, behind these types and that the dynamic balance of this process may influence psychological manifestations.