Visual Evoked Potentials to Light Flashes in Captive Rhesus Monkeys: A Study Reflecting Cerebral Cortical Activity and Brain Maturation

Abstract

Visual evoked potentials (VEPs) are useful electrophysiological diagnostic tools for evaluating retinal response of the visual cortex and detecting its functional integrity in humans and animals. To analyze the VEPs and physiologic response of the visual pathway of a random population of captive-bred monkeys of the Macaca mulatta species throughout different physiologic stages after stimulation with stroboscopic light flashes. In this study we used 20 non-human primates (M. mulatta), 10 males and 10 females, divided into five age-dependant cohorts of 2 males and 2 females. Two replicable negative waveforms and one positive were recorded, as reliable indicators of electrical conductivity at specific anatomical nuclei of the visual pathways. Statistically significant differences were primarily observed in group 1 when compared against the remaining groups for the three evaluated waveforms. Waveform morphology characteristically presented steady deviations related to ontogenetic development of the studied population.

Keywords

• Brain maduration
• Latency
• Macaca mulatta
• Neuronal Maturation
• Ontogenetic Development
• Visual Cortices
• Visual Evoked Potentials (VEP)