PATTERN-REVERSAL EVOKED-POTENTIALS - GENDER DIFFERENCES AND AGE-RELATED-CHANGES IN AMPLITUDE AND LATENCY

This report is intended to complement the current body of literature b y describing pattern reversal.evoked potential (PREP) component amplit udes and latencies in a larger sample than has been previously studied and providing comparisons of males and females across the lifespan. B inocular PREPs were measured from 406 normal subjects, 6-80 years of a ge. In general, latencies were found to decrease during maturation, st abilize across early adulthood, then begin to increase sometime after the late 20s. There were minimal gender differences in latencies durin g development but males tended to have longer latencies than females d uring adulthood. Across the lifespan, amplitudes were larger for femal es. Results of regression analyses using the entire data set were comp ared to results of separate regression analyses for developmental year s (6-20) and adulthood (21-80). Separate analyses appear to provide mo re useful descriptions of PREP latency and amplitude changes across th e lifespan. It is clear that predicted normal values can vary dependin g on age range and relative proportion of males and females comprising a reference sample. Appropriate clinical values should be based on ag e- and sex-matched normal subjects and should be specific with regard to technical and methodological variables.