Sexual differences in human somatosensory evoked responses.

Abstract

SummaryConverting the patterns of the Somatosensory Evoked Response (SER) recorded from 29 schizophrenic adult inpatients, 12 males and 17 females, into the series of integers, the sexual differences in SER were studied by means of off‐line computation. IIA‐SER Patterns (Inter‐Individual Average Somatosensory Evoked Response Patterns) were shown with 29 subjects in all, with 12 males, and with 17 females. Marked differences between the IIA‐SER Patterns of males and of females were found. The latencies of P1, N2, P2, Pa and N4 were longer, but that of N3 was shorter in IIA‐SER Pattern of males than in that of females. Most of the amplitudes between the given pairs of the components were higher in the IIA‐SER Pattern of females than in that of males. The vertical difference between both IIA‐SER Patterns attained the maximum at 116 msec in latency. Studying the heights of each individual SER patterns at 116 msec in latency, the sex of the subjects was discriminated correctly at the rate of 72%. Adopting the Discriminant Function proposed in the present study, the sex of the subjects was discriminated correctly by their SER patterns at the rate of 90%.