Abstract

Recent studies of the visual evoked potential (VEP) have applied techniques of systems analysis in an effort to measure response properties of sub systems within the visual pathways (7,8,9,10). These studies employed a radial spatial pattern and two types of temporal modulation conditions Superimposed and Lateral, which were designed to emphasize local excitatory and lateral inhibitory interactions, respectively. In addition, a set of two-sinusoid signals were employed in order to estimate the filter characteristics of an initial and late stage of linear processing. The data were interpreted in the context of a linear-nonlinear-linear (L₁--N--L₂) model of visual functioning. Preliminary clinical investigations have shown that these novel VEP measures may be able to diagnose certain types of idiopathic epilepsy (6), and to localize the neural deficits associated with multiple sclerosis (7).

© 1986 Optical Society of America