Optic nerve involvement in patients with Lyme neuroborreliosis: an electrophysiological study.

Purpose: The aim of this neurophysiological study was to retrospectively analyze visual evoked potentials (VEPs) acquired during an examination for diagnosing optic nerve involvement in patients with Lyme neuroborreliosis (LNB). Attention was focused on LNB patients with peripheral facial palsy (PFP) and optic nerve involvement.

Methods: A total of 241 Czech patients were classified as having probable/definite LNB (193/48); of these, 57 were younger than 40 years, with a median age of 26.

New portable device for an examination of visual cognitive evoked potentials might extend their diagnostic applications in psychiatry.

Despite positive prior results obtained by using event-related potentials (ERPs) in psychiatric patients, they are not routinely used in the clinical setting. This may in part be due to problems regarding a lack of transportable equipment availability. It can be difficult for these patients to repeatedly visit electrophysiological laboratories.

VEP examination with new portable device.

Introduction: We developed a new portable device called "VEPpeak" for the examination of visual evoked potentials (VEPs) to extend VEP examination beyond specialized electrophysiological laboratories and to simplify the use of this objective, noninvasive, and low-cost method for diagnostics of visual and central nervous system dysfunctions.

Methods: VEPpeak consists of a plastic headset with a total weight of 390 g containing four EEG amplifiers, an A/D converter, a control unit, and a visual LED stimulator built in the front, vertically adjustable peak. The device is powered and controlled via USB connection from a standard PC/notebook using custom software for visual stimuli generation and for VEP recording and processing.

The intraocular implant and visual rehabilitation improve the quality of life of elderly patients with geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration.

Introduction: The objective of this prospective study was to evaluate the effects of intraocular macular lens implantation and visual rehabilitation on the quality of life of patients with geographic atrophy (GA) secondary to age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Methods: Patients with bilaterally decreased near vision (not better than 0.3 logMAR with the best correction), pseudophakia, were included in the project.

Vision before and after scharioth macular lens implantation in patients with AMD: an electrophysiological study.

Background: For patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a special intraocular lens implantation partially compensates for the loss in the central part of the visual field. For six months, we evaluated changes in neurophysiological parameters in patients implanted with a "Scharioth macula lens" (SML; a center near high add + 10 D and peripheral plano carrier bifocal lens designed to be located between the iris and an artificial lens).

Methods: Fourteen patients (5 M, 9 F, 63-87 years) with dry AMD were examined prior to and at 3 days after, as well as 1, 2, and 6 months after, implantation using pattern-reversal, motion-onset, and cognitive evoked potentials, psychophysical tests evaluating distant and near visual acuity, and contrast sensitivity.

Neural Correlates of Liberalism and Conservatism in a Post-communist Country.

A previous experiment showed that there was a strong correlation between conservatism/liberalism and brain activity, linked to an error response ( = 0.59, < 0.001) in the USA political environment.

Visual evoked and event-related brain potentials in HIV-infected adults: a longitudinal study over 2.5 years.

Purpose: The aim of this neurophysiological study was to monitor changes in the visual and cognitive function of HIV-infected patients treated with combination antiretroviral therapy.

Methods: Eleven adult Czech HIV+ patients, with a mean age of 35 years and CD4 cell count ≥ 230 × 10 cells/L of blood at the time of enrollment, underwent four to six examinations over the course of 2.5 years to evaluate pattern-reversal and motion-onset visual evoked potentials (P-VEPs and M-VEPs), visually driven oddball event-related potentials (ERPs) and Montreal Cognitive Assessments.

Pattern- and motion-related visual evoked potentials in HIV-infected adults.

Purpose: The goal of the current study was to explore visual function in virally suppressed HIV patients undergoing combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) by using pattern-reversal and motion-onset visual evoked potentials (VEPs).

Methods: The pattern-reversal and motion-onset VEPs were recorded in 20 adult HIV+ patients with a mean age of 38 years and CD4 cell counts ≥230 × 10 cells/L of blood.

Results: Nine out of 20 patients displayed VEP abnormalities.

Comparison of visual information processing in school-age dyslexics and normal readers via motion-onset visual evoked potentials.

Standard pattern-reversal visual evoked potentials (VEPs) and motion-onset VEPs (M-VEPs) were tested in 19 dyslexics and 19 normal readers aged 7-13 years in order to evaluate the feasibility of M-VEPs for the objective diagnostics of a visual subtype of dyslexia, in which a dysfunction of the magnocellular subsystem/dorsal stream of the visual pathway is suspected. The set of VEPs consisted of the pattern-reversal VEPs with check sizes of 20', two types of translational motion (with low and high contrast) and two types of radial motion (in the full field or the periphery). While the P100 peak parameters in pattern-reversal VEPs did not differ between the group of dyslexics and controls, the group of dyslexics displayed significantly longer N2 latencies in all types of M-VEPs.

Difficulties of motion-onset VEP interpretation in school-age children.

Background: In adults, motion-onset visual evoked potentials (M-VEPs) with a dominant N2 peak represent a useful diagnostic tool. However, it is difficult to use this type of VEP in children because of the long maturation (up to 18 years) of M-VEPs, which is characterised by a gradual decrease in N2 peak latency and shape development. Moreover, in some children, M-VEPs are difficult to identify with standard stimuli.

Visual mismatch negativity in the dorsal stream is independent of concurrent visual task difficulty.

The manipulation of attention can produce mismatch negativity-like components that are not necessarily connected to the unintentional sensory registration of the violation of probability-based regularity. For clinical purposes, attentional bias should be quantified because it can vary substantially among subjects and can decrease the specificity of the examination. This experiment targets the role of attention in the generation of visual mismatch negativity (vMMN).

Spared cognitive processing of visual oddballs despite delayed visual evoked potentials in patient with partial recovery of vision after 53 years of blindness.

We examined the visual and cognitive functions of a 72-year-old subject, KP, who recovered his sight after 53 years of visual deprivation. We used visual evoked potentials (VEPs) to pattern-reversal and motion-onset stimuli and cognitive responses (ERPs) during the oddball paradigm to assess the effect of long-term deprivation on a mature visual system. KP lost his sight at the age of 17 years, and light projection onto his right retina was restored at 71 years by a corneal implant.

A pilot study to monitor Graves' ophthalmopathy with a combination of pattern-reversal and motion-onset visual evoked potentials.

Objective: The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the efficacy of visual evoked potentials (VEPs) in the monitoring of visual function during a high-dose intravenous steroid pulse therapy and apheresis treatment of severe Graves' ophthalmopathy (GO). PATIENTS AND RESEARCH DESIGN: Nine patients with severe and active GO were treated with high-dose methylprednisolone (1 g day(-1) three times within 1 week, then 0.5 g day(-1) seven times for 2 weeks) combined with plasma filtration (twice a week in weeks 1, 2, 4, 7, and 10).

Aging effect in pattern, motion and cognitive visual evoked potentials.

An electrophysiological study on the effect of aging on the visual pathway and various levels of visual information processing (primary cortex, associate visual motion processing cortex and cognitive cortical areas) was performed. We examined visual evoked potentials (VEPs) to pattern-reversal, motion-onset (translation and radial motion) and visual stimuli with a cognitive task (cognitive VEPs - P300 wave) at luminance of 17 cd/m(2). The most significant age-related change in a group of 150 healthy volunteers (15-85 years of age) was the increase in the P300 wave latency (2 ms per 1 year of age).

An electrophysiological study of visual processing in spinocerebellar ataxia type 2 (SCA2).

Reports of visual functional impairment in spinocerebellar ataxia type 2 (SCA2) have been studied previously using pattern reversal visually evoked potentials (VEPs) with contradictory results. To provide additional evidence to this area, visual functions were studied using VEPs and event-related potentials (ERPs) in a group of ten patients with genetically verified SCA2. The electrophysiological examination included pattern reversal and motion-onset VEPs as well as visually driven oddball ERPs with an evaluation of a target and a pre-attentive response.

Effect of memantine in Alzheimer's disease evaluated by visual-evoked potentials to pattern-reversal, motion-onset, and cognitive stimuli.

The authors tested visual-evoked potentials to pattern-reversal, motion-onset, and visual cognitive event-related potentials in 17 patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease treated with Memantine (noncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartic acid antagonist) to verify whether these objective methods can evaluate its therapeutic effect. The patients were examined before Memantine administration and after 3 and 6 months from the treatment onset. Besides electrophysiology, psychologic Alzheimer Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive part (ADAS-cog) test was also performed.

Ophthalmological examination and VEPs in preterm children with perinatal CNS involvement.

Five children with a history of preterm birth (mean gestational age of 27 weeks; birth weight 870-1,380 g) and perinatal post-hemorrhagic hydrocephalus were examined ophthalmologically at ages ranging from 4-11 years. An extended visual evoked potentials (VEPs) examination was simultaneously performed, using pattern-reversal, motion-onset, and cognitive visual stimuli. Although 3 of the 10 eyes displayed about normal visual acuity (> or =0.

Within-session reproducibility of motion-onset VEPs: effect of adaptation/habituation or fatigue on N2 peak amplitude and latency.

We explored the effect of repeated visual stimulation on motion-onset visual evoked potentials (M-VEPs) during 25 min recording sessions in 10 subjects. The aim of the experiment was to determine influence of global motion adaptation (without motion-aftereffect) on intra-individual variability of M-VEPs and to suggest an optimal recording design for clinical examination. In addition to well described middle-time sensory adaptation, we also observed a long-time effect on motion specific N2 peak (155 ms).

Motion-onset and pattern-reversal visual evoked potentials in diagnostics of neuroborreliosis.

Neuroborreliosis is a form of borreliosis that affects the central and/or peripheral nervous system. Although it can mimic neurologic and ophthalmologic disorders such as multiple sclerosis and optic neuritis, visual evoked potential (VEP) examination is usually not used in neuroborreliosis diagnostics. Combined VEP testing (pattern-reversal VEPs and VEPs produced in response to linear and radial motion) was performed in 81 patients with neuroborreliosis verified by laboratory results (positive polymerase chain reaction or intrathecal antibodies production).