TOWARDS THE POSSIBLE CLINICAL-APPLICATION OF THE MISMATCH NEGATIVITY COMPONENT OF EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS

The mismatch negativity (MMN) is an event-related potential component that signifies neurophysiological processing of fine acoustic differen ces. The MMN indicates attention-independent change detection, reflect s auditory sensory memory and provides a physiological measure of diff erence sensitivity. This paper will provide an overview of current res earch where results gained by MMN testing in different patient groups were central to the interpretation of an assumed abnormality of proces sing or storing acoustic features.