A brief visual evoked potential (VEP) modulation assessment of experience-dependent plasticity recorded via wireless dry-EEG headset in Phase 1 clinical units.
Experience-dependent modulation of the visual evoked potential (VEP) can be used as a non-invasive human correlate of invasive measurements of long-term potentiation (LTP)-type neuroplasticity in animal research. However, conventional electroencephalogram (EEG) recording is high burden and time consuming, hindering adoption. Further, reliability of participant-level VEP modulation measures, even in highly controlled conditions, has been disappointing. To increase the practicality and utility of the assessment we trialled a short (11-min) paradigm with wireless dry-EEG headset and applied multiscale frequency-domain analyses to extract more precise measures of neuroplasticity. This approach was tested in healthy participants in laboratory (n = 17) and Phase 1 clinical studies (n = 33). Typical session duration was < 30 min. Test-retest reliability of VEP waveforms were compared to literature on full-length paradigms with wet-EEG hardware. Group-level time-domain event-related potential (ERP) analyses showed post-modulation P1 amplitude increase in both groups (Cohen's d = 0.77, 0.78, respectively) and N1b amplitude decrease in clinical study group (Cohen's d = - 0.52). Timeseries-based test-retest reliability of the VEP modulation effect was low but was substantially improved to moderate levels (some intraclass correlation ≥ 0.5) with a wavelet-based analysis. This suggests that VEP modulation assessments could be employed across multiple sites to objectively measure experience-dependent plasticity in real-world clinical trials of central nervous system therapies.
Authors
McWilliams McWilliams, Milanovic Milanovic, Elvsåshagen Elvsåshagen, Lew Lew, Hopkins Hopkins, Andrews Andrews, Walling Walling, Islam Islam, Nolan Nolan, Koblan Koblan, Murphy Murphy
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