EVENT-RELATED POTENTIAL P300 IN 16-17-YEAR-OLD SCHOOLCHILDREN LIVING IN THE ARCTIC ZONE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Living in adverse climatic and geographical conditions of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation requires mobilization of the adaptive mechanisms of the central nervous system in humans. The parameters of the event-related potential P300 serve as indicators of brain bioelectric processes associated with the mechanisms of information perception and processing. This study aimed to establish the parameters of the event-related potential P300 in 16-17-year-old schoolchildren living in different regions of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation based on a comparative analysis. The auditory event-related potential P300 was evaluated in subjects living in the Nenets Autonomus Okrug (NAO), Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YNAO) and the Arkhangelsk Region (AR). P300 latency and amplitude were recorded by the Encephalan-131-03 electroencephalograph (Medicom MTD, Russia) in the frontal (F3, F4), central (C4, C3), parietal (P3, P4), mid-temporal (T3, T4), and anterior temporal (F7, F8) areas of the brain using the oddball method. In schoolchildren living in AR and YNAO, the amplitude-latency parameters of P300 did not differ significantly. Subjects living in NAO, the majority of whom are representatives of the indigenous peoples of the North (the Nenets), had a longer P300 latency than their peers from other regions. Р300 amplitudes in schoolchildren from all the regions under study were statistically identical. The author comes to the conclusion that longer information processing time, according to the P300 data, reflects the adaptive psychophysiological characteristics of the population with a long historical experience of living in the North.