An Experimental Study Of Event-related Potential P300 Of Alzheimer's Disease

Objective To study the event-related potential P300 (ERP-P300, P300) characteristic of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and correlation between P300 indexes and mini-mental state examination (MMSE) score of AD patients.Methods With American Nicolet Spirit Instrument, there were P300 test and MMSE assessment carried out in twenty-five consecutive patients met NINCDS-ADRDA criteria for probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), and these tests were also made in twenty-two normally aged controls (NC) matched for AD at sex,age and marrige at the same time.Results 1. The patients with AD had significant delayed P2, N2 and P3 latencies and decreased P2 and P3 amplitudes of P300 than those of normal controls. 2. The variations of P300 markers of AD patients were no remarkable differences among the Fz, Cz and Pz sites, and 3. The varied P300 markers were found significantly correlated with a cognitive assessment-MMSE score.Conclusions The recorded P300 differences between ADand NC groups reflected worsened brain cognitive function extensively in AD patients. The variations of P300 were no remarkable in three recorded sites, and means that degenerative changes involved extensive brain sectors of AD patients. There were some significant correlations between the P300 markers and MMSE score in AD patients. It suggests that P300 might be an important approach to etiopathology of Alzheimer's disease, and may have more clinical value as a complementary method of Alzheimer's disease.