Eliciting and Recording Event Related Potentials (ERPs) in Behaviourally Unresponsive Populations: A Retrospective Commentary on Critical Factors

Brain Sciences

John F. Connolly¹  Richard Mah²  Amabilis Harrison³  Alexander Rokos⁴  Tsee Leng Choy⁵  Rober Boshra⁶  Stefanie Blain-Moraes⁷ 

[1] Centre for Advanced Research in Experimental and Applied Linguistics, Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada;Department of Linguistics and Languages, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4M2, Canada;Imaging Research Centre, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, Hamilton, ON L8N 4A6, Canada;Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada;McMaster Integrative Neuroscience Discovery & Study (MiNDS), McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8, Canada;School of Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8, Canada;School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3G 1Y5, Canada;

关键词: disorders of consciousness;    electroencephalography;    N400;    P3b;    event related potentials;   

DOI  :  10.3390/brainsci11070835

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

A consistent limitation when designing event-related potential paradigms and interpreting results is a lack of consideration of the multivariate factors that affect their elicitation and detection in behaviorally unresponsive individuals. This paper provides a retrospective commentary on three factors that influence the presence and morphology of long-latency event-related potentials—the P3b and N400. We analyze event-related potentials derived from electroencephalographic (EEG) data collected from small groups of healthy youth and healthy elderly to illustrate the effect of paradigm strength and subject age; we analyze ERPs collected from an individual with severe traumatic brain injury to illustrate the effect of stimulus presentation speed. Based on these critical factors, we support that: (1) the strongest paradigms should be used to elicit event-related potentials in unresponsive populations; (2) interpretation of event-related potential results should account for participant age; and (3) speed of stimulus presentation should be slower in unresponsive individuals. The application of these practices when eliciting and recording event-related potentials in unresponsive individuals will help to minimize result interpretation ambiguity, increase confidence in conclusions, and advance the understanding of the relationship between long-latency event-related potentials and states of consciousness.

【 授权许可】

Unknown