N100, N200, and P300 Auditory Event-Related Potentials Depending on Handedness and Response Tasks such as Button Pressing and Mental Counting

Abstract

The auditory event-related potential (AERP) is a time-locked tool to measure the electrical activity of the cerebral surface representing a distinct phase of cortical processing. The first N100 component has been conceptualized as a pre-attentive response related to perception. The N100 response was modulated by the physical characteristics of stimuli such as type, intensity, and duration, and also depended on subject factors such as the internal state, neural activity, and cognition. As it was the first stimulus in a series, the N100 amplitude was relatively high but lowered for subsequent repetitions of stimuli (Brown et al., 2002; Clearwater et al., 2008). N200 has been known to be a comprehensive response of cortical, thalamic, and brainstem regions, although the source of N200 activation relied on some extent to the limbic and complex generating system in the region of the thalamus (Ponton et al., 2002). N200 was also thought to be sensitive to cognitive aspects such as task demands and attention (Näätänen & Picton, 1986). However, the latency of N200 exhibited conflicting findings depending on the age of participants (Amenedo & Díaz, 1998). As observed only during conscious stimulus attention, P300 was often found as a part of complex components of N200, which were categorized as endogenous potentials because even mere mental counting tasks for target stimuli could elicit them well (Kaga et al., 2014). P300 reflected the brain activity required to update working memory when changes occurred in the stimulus and variation of the amplitude indicated the degree of inclusion of the central nervous system activity involved in processing information (Verleger et al., 2014). RESEARCH PAPER pISSN 2635-5019 / eISSN 2635-5027 / Audiol Speech Res 2020;16(4):314-320 / https://doi.org/10.21848/asr.200059 ASR