CONTRAST SENSITIVITY OF THE HUMAN NEONATE MEASURED BY THE VISUAL EVOKED-POTENTIAL

  • 1 January 1979
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 18  (2) , 210-213
Abstract
Visual evoked potentials (VEP) were recorded from 97 1-10 day old infants with phase-reversing sinusoidal grating stimuli. The grating contrast or spatial frequency for which 50% of infants gave a statistically significant VEP was taken as a measure of threshold. This procedure yielded an estimated of neonatal activity of 0.85 cyles/degree and an optimal contrast threshold of 50%. VEP from an older infant showed good agreement with behavioral measures of sensitivity on the same individual. Comparison of the neonatal VEP results with behavioral data from 5 wk old infants suggests little change in visual performance over the 1st mo. of life.