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Reliability of the Flash Visual Evoked Potential P2: Double-Stimulation Study

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Abstract

The flash visual evoked potential P2 (FVEP-P2) has been identified as a potentially useful clinical, diagnostic tool for Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCIa) due to its association with cholinergic functioning in the brain. The FVEP-P2 is the second positive component of the VEP waveform elicited by a single strobe flash. Despite finding a selective delay in the latency of the FVEP-P2 in AD and MCIa groups, adequate levels of sensitivity and specificity have not been achieved due to natural group differences and inter-individual variability. In response, Fix and colleagues introduced a novel, double-stimulation paradigm that contained two strobe flashes (i.e., stimulations). The first stimulation served as a visual challenge while the second stimulation produced the recorded FVEP-P2 component. The results of that investigation indicated that the latency of the FVEP-P2 could be used to reliably discriminate between aMCI and healthy controls when the ISI of the double-stimulation condition was 100 ms or higher. Unfortunately, very little is known regarding the psychometric properties of the FVEP-P2 when produced by a double-stimulation condition. Consequently, we assessed the test–retest reliability of the FVEP-P2 latency produced by a single- and twelve double-stimulation conditions in a sample of young, healthy individuals (N = 20). Results indicated that while the FVEP-P2 latencies produced by the single- and double-stimulation paradigm were reliable, the intra-individual variability continued to be too high for the FVEP-P2 latency to be used clinically. Methods of reducing the intra-individual variability are discussed, including the use of monochromatic light.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, USA

    Kyra E. Wyatt-McElvain, James E. Arruda & Vanessa R. Rainey

  2. Pensacola, USA

    Kyra E. Wyatt-McElvain

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  1. Kyra E. Wyatt-McElvain
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  2. James E. Arruda
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  3. Vanessa R. Rainey
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Correspondence to Kyra E. Wyatt-McElvain.

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Wyatt-McElvain, K.E., Arruda, J.E. & Rainey, V.R. Reliability of the Flash Visual Evoked Potential P2: Double-Stimulation Study. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 43, 153–159 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10484-018-9392-6

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