Sensory Evoked Potentials
Sensory evoked potentials (SEP) are recorded from the central nervous system following stimulation of sense organs (for example, visual evoked potentials elicited by a flashing light or changing pattern on a monitor; auditory evoked potentials by a click or tone stimulus presented through earphones) or by tactile or somatosensory evoked potential (SSEP) elicited by tactile or electrical stimulation of a sensory or mixed nerve in the periphery. They have been widely used in clinical diagnostic medicine since the 1970s, and also in intraoperative neurophysiology monitoring (IONM), also known as surgical neurophysiology.
There are three kinds of evoked potentials in widespread clinical use: auditory evoked potentials, usually recorded from the scalp but originating at brainstem level; visual evoked potentials, and somatosensory evoked potentials, which are elicited by electrical stimulation of peripheral nerve. See below.
Long and Allen reported the abnormal brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP) in an alcoholic woman who recovered from Ondine's curse. These investigators hypothesized that their patient's brainstem was poisoned, but not destroyed, by her chronic alcoholism.
Read more about this topic: Evoked Potential
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