Short-duration transient visual evoked potential for objective measurement of refractive errors

This study examined effects of uncorrected refractive errors (RE) in a short-duration transient visual evoked potential (SD t-VEP) system and investigated their role for objective measurement of RE. Refractive errors were induced by means of trial lenses in 35 emmetropic subjects. A synchronized single-channel EEG was recorded for emmetropia, and each simulated refractive state to generate 21 VEP responses for each subject. P100 amplitude (N75 trough to P100 peak) and latency were identified by an automated post-signal processing algorithm. Induced hypermetropia and myopia correlated strongly with both P100 amplitude and latency. To minimize the effect of baseline shift and waveform fluctuations, a VEP scoring system, based on software-derived P100 latency, amplitude and waveform quality, was used to estimate the RE. Using the VEP scores, a single VEP response had a high sensitivity and specificity for discerning emmetropia, small RE (<2 diopter) within a 2 diopter range and large RE (2-14 diopter) within a 4 diopter range. The VEP scoring system has a potential for objective screening of RE and for a more accurate 3-step objective refraction.