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C C Wood

Publications and source records attributed to C C Wood.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Developmental and aging changes in somatosensory, auditory and visual evoked potentials.

To assess developmental and aging changes in human sensory systems, components of short-latency somatosensory, brain-stem auditory and pattern-reversal visual evoked potentials, thought to originate in specific structures of these systems, were recorded in 286 normal subjects ranging in age from 4 to 95 years. Analysis was primarily restricted to peak and interpeak latencies; visual evoked potential amplitudes were also analyzed. Major results and conclusions are: (1) 'Developmental' changes (that is, decreases in latency attributable to decreased conduction time in younger subjects) were not seen in the median nerve, in brain-stem auditory pathways, or in some portions of visual cortex. Small developmental changes were seen in the somatosensory afferent pathway from the cervical spinal cord to thalamus, and large changes were seen in somatosensory and visual cortex. Cortical developmental changes appeared not to be complete until 17 years of age or later. (2) 'Aging' changes (that is, increases in latency attributable to increased conduction time in older subjects) were observed in the median nerve, cervical spinal cord, brain-stem auditory pathways, and somatosensory and visual cortex. (3) Visual evoked potential amplitudes tended to decrease with age, particularly during development; amplitude and latency effects were dissimilar for most components. (4) Males tended to show larger aging effects than females. (5) The results suggest that age-related changes in human sensory systems are not uniform, but rather are different in specific portions of these systems, different at particular epochs of the life span, and stronger in males than in females.

Adolescent↗

Principal component analysis of event-related potentials: simulation studies demonstrate misallocation of variance across components.

Simulated event-related potential (ERP) components were used to investigate the ability of principal component analysis (PCA), Varimax rotation and univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) to reconstruct component wave shapes, to allocate variance correctly across components, and to identify the correct locus of simulated experimental treatments. The simulated ERPs consisted of 800 randomly weighted combinations of three 64-point components, corresponding to a 2 X 2 X 10 repeated-measures design with 20 subjects. Covariance PCAs, Varimax rotations and univariate ANOVAs were performed on each of 400 such simulations, 100 with no effect of any experimental treatment and 100 each with main effects on each of the 3 components. Eight hundred additional simulations were performed to investigate the effects of systematic variations in the size of the experimental treatments and the number of subjects per experiment. The wave shapes of the simulated components were reconstructed reasonably well, although not completely, by the rotated principal component (PC) loadings. However, comparison of rotated PC scores with the random weights used to generate the simulated ERPs indicated that PCA incorrectly allocated variance across overlapping components, producing dramatic increases in type I error (the largest in excess of 80%) for ANOVAs on one component when the true treatment effect was on another. Although these results should not be overgeneralized, they clearly demonstrate that the PCA-Varimax-ANOVA strategy can incorrectly distribute variance across components, resulting in serious misinterpretation of treatment effects. Additional simulation studies are needed to determine the generality of the variance misallocation problem; pending the outcome of such studies, results obtained with the PCA-Varimax-ANOVA strategy should be interpreted cautiously.

Analysis of Variance↗

Brain stem auditory, pattern-reversal visual, and short-latency somatosensory evoked potentials: latencies in relation to age, sex, and brain and body size.

To determine standards of normality for auditory, somatosensory and visual evoked potentials commonly used in the assessment of neurological disease, 8 AEP, 1 VEP and 12 SEP components were recorded to stimulation of left and right ears, eyes, and median nerves in 286 normal subjects ranging in age from 4 to 95 years. Peak and interpeak latencies, and left-right differences in latency, were analyzed as a function of age, sex, and estimates of brain and body size. Major features of the results were: (1) Peak latencies of all components showed statistically significant increases in latency with age except that VEP P100 latency decreased significantly between 4 and 19 years and did not change between 20 and 59 years. (2) In adults the peak latencies of all components were significantly later in males than in females. For AEPs and VEPs these differences were explained by sex differences in brain size, and for adult SEPs were explained by sex differences in arm and shoulder dimensions. No significant sex differences in VEP and SEP latencies were seen in children. (3) Most interpeak latencies showed significant differences in relation to age or sex. (4) Age and sex are useful predictors of latency for nearly all peak and interpeak latencies; in addition, height is a useful predictor of SEP peak latencies. (5) Left-right latency differences showed little age-related, and no sex-related, change. The interlaboratory use of these or other normative data was discussed. It was concluded that these AEP and SEP norms can probably be used in other laboratories if stimulating and recording conditions are similar. However, VEP results are difficult to transfer due to the poorly understood effects of variation in stimulus conditions. Some issues regarding the optimal characterization of norms were also discussed.

Adolescent↗

Gasser and Graham and spinal cord electrophysiology.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the pioneering electrophysiological study of the spinal cord by H. S. Gasser and H. T. Graham (Am. J. Physiol. 103: 303-320, 1983). Gasser and Graham's paper is of historical interest, because it was the first study of the spinal cord to use a cathode ray tube. It is of scientific interest, because their careful recordings and insightful interpretations laid the groundwork for subsequent studies of spinal cord electrophysiology in anesthetized animals and, more recently, for the interpretation of noninvasive spinal cord recordings in awake, intact humans.

Animals↗

Scalp distribution of human auditory evoked potentials. II. Evidence for overlapping sources and involvement of auditory cortex.

The scalp distributions of human auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) between 20 and 250 msec were investigated using non-cephalic reference recordings. AEPs to binaural click stimuli were recorded simultaneously from 20 scalp locations over the right hemisphere in 11 subjects. Computer-generated isovoltage topographic maps at high temporal resolution were used to assess the stability of AEP scalp distributions over time and relate them to major peaks in the AEP wave forms. For potentials between 20 and 60 msec, the results demonstrate a stable scalp distribution of dipolar form that is consistent with sources in primary auditory cortex on the superior temporal plant near the temporoparietal junction. For potentials between 60 and 250 msec, the results demonstrate changes in AEP morphology across electrode locations and changes in scalp distribution over time that lead to two major conclusions. First, AEPs in this latency period are generated by multiple sources which partially overlap in time. Second, one or more regions of auditory cortex contribute significantly to AEPs in this period. Additional data are needed to determine the relative contribution of auditory cortex sources on the superior temporal plane and the lateral temporal surface and to identify AEP sources outside the temporal lobe.

Auditory Cortex↗

Auditory and phonetic levels of processing in speech perception: neurophysiological and information-processing analyses.

Two new experimental operations were used to distinguish between auditory and phonetic levels of processing in speech perception: the first based on reaction time data in speeded classification tasks with synthetic speech stimuli, and the second based on average evoked potentials recorded concurrently in the same tasks. Each of four experiments compared the processing of two different dimensions of the same synthetic consonant-vowel syllables. When a phonetic dimensions was compared to an auditory dimension, different patterns of results were obtained in both the reaction time and evoked potential data. No such differences were obtained for isolated acoustic components of the phonetic dimension or for two purely auditory dimensions. Together with other recent evidence, the present results constitute additional converging operations on the distinction between auditory and phonetic processes in speech perception and on the idea that phonetic processing involves mechanisms that are lateralized in one cerebral hemisphere.

Acoustic Stimulation↗