COGNITIVE EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS P300 IN SCHOOLCHILDREN AGED 7-17 YEARS
Gender is presumed to be one of the factors causing morphofunctional variability in the human brain. The previously published findings are inconsistent with respect to gender differences in cognitive ERPs. The aim of this study was to characterize the role of gender in visual cognitive event -related potentials (ERPs) P300 in schoolchildren 7-17 years. Methods. We examined 521 children (234 boys and 287 girls). Our subjects had no ophthalmological or neurological disease. Informed parents' consent was obtained from each subject after the test procedure had been explained to him or her. All children were divided into groups according to their biological age and gender. Binocular ERPs were recorded during an oddball test using 21-channel electroencephalograph "Neuron-Spectrum" (Russia). Amplitude and latence of P2, N2, P2-N2, P3, N2-P3 were evaluated. Recordings were acquired from the occipital (O1 and O2) derivations. Results. The P2 and N2 latency increase was observed in 7-year-old girls in the right hemisphere, p = 0.021 and p = 0.029, respectively. The predominance of P2 latency in 13-year-old boys was found, the differences were statistically significant in the left hemisphere, p = 0.038. Higher P300 latencies in 8-year-old girls were observed in the left and right hemispheres, p = 0.05 and p = 0.027, respectively. There were no statistically significant gender differences of P300 amplitude. Analysis showed that N2-P3 amplitude was higher in 7-years-old boys than girls in both hemispheres, р = 0,006 и р = 0,009, respectively, and in 13-years-old boys in the left hemispheres, р = 0,026. It should be noted that the 14-17 years-old age period was characterized by the absence of gender differences in P2, P3 latency, and N2-P3 amplitude. Conclusion. The results of our study show sex differences among almost all components of cognitive event-related potentials (with the exception of the amplitude of the interval P2-N2 and the amplitude of the component P300) in children 7-17 years. The obtained data emphasize the importance of taking into account gender in the study of cognitive function in children 7-17 years.