Influence of education level on design-induced N170 and P300 components of event related potentials in the human brain

Abstract

Simple geometric and organic shapes and their arrangement are being used in different neuropsychology tests for the assessment of cognitive function, special memory and also for the therapy purpose in different patient groups. Until now there is no electrophysiological evidence of cognitive function determination for simple geometric, organic shapes and their arrangement. Then the main objective of this study is to know the cortical processing and amplitude, latency of visual induced N170 and P300 event related potential components on different geometric, organic shapes and their arrangement and different educational influence on it, which is worthwhile to know for the early and better treatment for those patient groups. While education influenced on cognitive function by using auditory oddball task, little is known about the influence of education on cognitive function induced by visual attention task in case of the choice of geometric, organic shapes and their arrangements. Using a 128-electrode sensor net, we studied the responses of the choice of the different geometric and organic shapes randomly in experiment 1 and their arrangements in experiment 2 in the high, medium and low education groups. In both experiments, subjects push the button "1" or "2" if like or dislike, respectively. Total 45 healthy subjects (15 in each group) were recruited. ERPs were measured from 11 electrode sites and analyzed to see the evoked N170/N240 and P300 ERP components. There were no differences between like and dislike in amplitudes even in latencies in every stimulus in both experiments. We fixed geometric shapes and organic shapes stimuli only, not like and dislike. Upon the stimulus types, N170 ERP component was found instead of N240, in occipito-temporal (T5, T6, O1 and O2) locations where the amplitude is the highest at O2 location and P300 was distributed in the central (Cz and Pz) locations in both experiments in all groups. In experiment 1, significant low amplitude and non-significant larger latency of the N170 component are found out at O1 location for both stimuli in low education group comparing medium education groups, but in experiment 2, there is no significant difference between stimuli among groups in amplitude and latency. In both experiments, P300 component was found in Cz and Pz locations though the amplitudes are higher at Cz than Pz areas. In experiment 1, medium education group evoked significantly (geometric shape stimuli, P = 0.05; organic shape stimuli, P = 0.02) higher amplitude of P300 component comparing low education group at Cz location. Whereas, there is no significant difference of amplitudes among groups across stimuli in Cz and Pz locations in experiment 2. Latencies have no significant differences in both experiments among groups also, but longer latency are found in low education group at Cz location comparing medium education group, though not significant. We conclude that simple geometric shapes, organic shapes and their arrangements evoked visual N170 component at temporo-occipital area...

Mild cognitive impairment in mild brain injury (MBI) patients: An event related potential (ERP) and neuropsychology study.

“…The mean differences between the target and standard stimuli for the amplitudes and latencies of the P50, N100 and P300 ERP components were collected using Net-Station software 5.2 (Electrical Geodesics, Inc., Eugene, OR, USA) [23,24] . We subsequently determined the significance level among the groups across electrode positions using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 [23,24] . One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for this purpose.…”

“…Group 1 (G1) (n=19) comprised control healthy subjects; group 2 (G2/1 st test-MBI) (n=19) comprised participants with MBI who underwent an ERP test within 7 days of a road traffic accident (RTA); and group 3 (G3/2 nd test-MBI) (n=19) included the same patients who were tested with both ERP and neuropsychology tests 2-6 months after a RTA. Sample size was calculated by one statistician using power and sample size (PS) software [23,24] . G1 was recruited by online advertisements, and G2 was selected by neurosurgeons in the Neurosurgery Department in the Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM) based on the recruitment criteria of MBI.…”

“…ERP study A 128-electrode sensor net was used for data acquisition in the ERP experiment. Auditory stimulation was presented using E-prime v 2.0 software (Psychology Software Tools, Inc., Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, USA) [23,24] . All participants were seated in a dimly lit and sound treated room with head phones.…”

“…There are documents that the socio-economic status also may affect the cognitive functions. Higher education can lead to the higher cognitive function, reflected in the P300, N170 and N200 ERP components 23,24 . Finally, higher education can ensure higher level of occupation and elevated income 25,26 .…”

Coping strategies and education of parents of autistic children in Bangladesh

“…Researchers have demonstrated that higher education can result in higher cognitive functions. In other words, individuals who are more highly-educated have a greater executive ability to manage their problems 8,9 . They also might excel at converted attention 10 .…”