I. Reinvang et al., Information processing deficits in head injury assessed with ERPs reflecting early and late processing stages, NEUROPSYCHO, 38(7), 2000, pp. 995-1005
ERPs provide informative measures of slowed information processing in head
injury. While several studies have reported changes in long latency ERPs (N
2, P3) in head injury, the data on early ERP components related to attentio
n selection are inconclusive. The problem may be partly methodological beca
use the standard oddball paradigm does not give an adequate basis for discr
iminating components contributing to the N1 and P2 waveforms. Following a s
uggestion by Garcia-Larrea et al. [10: Garcia-Larrea L, Lukasziewicz A-C, M
augiere F. Revisiting the oddball paradigm. Non-target vs neutral stimuli a
nd the evaluation of ERP attention effects. Neuropsychologia 1992;30:723-74
1] we used an extended oddball paradigm to study measures of early processi
ng (N1-average, P250) as well as conventional cognitive ERPs (N1, P2, N2, P
3) in a group of head injured patients and controls. We found evidence of d
eficits in early processing of neutral and non-target stimuli in the patien
t group, and interpret the findings as an indication that the patients are
less efficient in terminating processing of irrelevant stimuli. The results
further indicate that processing deviations affect both target and non-tar
get stimuli in the oddball paradigm and thus the allocation of attention in
the task as a whole. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.