The effect of the gender of the examined subjects on the course of the visual potentials evoked by the checker board pattern stimulation

: A goal of the present work was to analyze the correlation between a course of visual potentials elicited with the pattern stimulation and gender of the examined subjects. VEPs (Visual Evoked Potentials) recordings were performed using STELLA system in a group of 65 healthy adult subjects, with the age ranging from 18 to 70 years, consisting of the age-matched subgroups of 37 females and 28 males, applying a checkerboard as the pattern-reversal stimulation. In result of the analysis of the individual VEPs parameters, no effect of gender on the P100 latency was found. The discrepancies in the course of VEPs concerned P100 amplitudes, likewise a difference of the maximum and minimum amplitude, which proved to be significantly greater in the recordings collected from the left hemisphere in women than in men. Moreover, there was the appreciably greater symmetry between the responses registered over the both cerebral hemispheres, reflected by the higher correlation coefficients, in the male subgroup compared to the female subjects. The herein reported differences in the VEPs characteristics recorded in the male and female subjects can be elucidated on the ground of the documented discrepancies regarding the structural and functional cerebral organisation in women and men with regards to visual perception.