A. Klistorner et al., SEPARATE MAGNOCELLULAR AND PARVOCELLULAR CONTRIBUTIONS FROM TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF THE MULTIFOCAL VEP, Vision research, 37(15), 1997, pp. 2161-2169
Temporal analysis of the multifocal cortical visual evoked potential (
VEP) was studied using pseudo-random (m-sequence) achromatic stimulati
on, The effects of variation of luminance contrast on the first-order
response were complex, At low to mid contrasts (<60%), a wave doublet
(P100-N115) predominated, A second wave complex (N100-P120-N160) domin
ated at high contrasts, The second-order responses, however, showed an
extremely simple variation with luminance contrast, Intrinsic differe
nces in the adaptation time of the generators of these two components
caused a distinct separation in the slices of the second-order respons
e, A rapidly adapting nonlinearity saturating at low contrasts was onl
y observable when measuring the responses from two consecutive flashes
, Its latency coincided with the contrast saturating first-order respo
nse component. By comparison, the nonlinearity derived from the respon
ses to the stimuli with longer interstimulus intervals (second and thi
rd slices) yielded a much more linear contrast response function with
lower contrast gain and latencies, which clearly corresponded to the l
onger latency component of the first-order response, Thus, the second-
order responses show a first slice which is predominantly driven by ne
ural elements that have a latency and contrast function that mimic tho
se of the magnocellular neurons of the primate LGN and a second slice
which is dominated by a generator whose properties resemble primate pa
rvocellular function, This division into magno and parvocellular contr
ibution to the VEP is based on function (interaction time) as distinct
from other currently available analyses, with potential for neural an
alysis of visual disease. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.