Cognitive Event-Related Potentials: Useful Clinical Information in Alzheimer's Disease

Cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs) have been used as a marker of cognitive function in patients with psychiatric and neurological disorders. In particular, the P300 potential has been widely utilized to study dementia and aging, because the P300 ERP component is easily observed and reflects attention and memory processing. However, the relationship between parameters of the P300 potential and the severity or type of cognitive impairment in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) remains controversial. Because specific and effective anti-dementia treatments have recently become available for AD, more useful information is needed about the clinical aspects of this disease, including methods of making an accurate and early diagnosis, differentiation from vascular dementia and other degenerative dementias, assessment of severity, assessment of disease progression, evaluation of the response to treatment, and prediction of the prognosis. This mini-review described new discoveries on recent clinical application of ERPs in AD with respect to the above-mentioned areas. Although the definition of normal ERP values and the most appropriate method of ERP recording in AD patients have not been well defined, recent findings suggest that ERP analysis may be a clinically useful, inexpensive, noninvasive, and reliable method of assessing AD.