Annals of Clinical Neurophysiology

The Korean Society of Clinical Neurophysiology (대한임상신경생리학회)
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Neurophysiology of the Sensory System and Clinical Applications

감각신경계의 신경생리와 임상적 이용

  • Seo, Dae-Won (Department of Neurology, Samsung Medical Center, Samsung Brain and Nerve Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine)
  • 서대원 (성균관대학교 의과대학 삼성서울병원 뇌신경센터 신경과)
  • Received : 2010.10.22
  • Accepted : 2010.10.31
  • Published : 2010.12.31
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Abstract

Various electrophysiological tests have provided a large body of valuable information on neuronal responses to a presented stimulus. The special and general somatic sensory pathways are main targets of evoked potentials. Two types of evoked potentials, exogenous and endogenous, are commonly used. Exogenous evoked potentials of general and special somatic sensory systems will be reviewed. One of general somatic sensory functional pathways, proprioception, can be evaluated by general somatosensory evoked potentials with electrical stimulation on nerves. The special somatosensory functional pathways, including vision, and audition, can be evaluated by visual evoked potentials and auditory evoked potentials. Also laser-evoked potentials are newly developed for pain pathway, including lateral spinothalamic pathway, and vestibular myogenic evoked potentials for sacculocollic pathways. The evoked potentials of sensory system have maximal clinical utility in evaluating functional deficits along the sensory pathways. They are used for evaluating comatose patients, hysterical patients, premature infants, patients with suspected demyelinating diseases or neoplasms, and research. We discuss the neurophysiologic tests of sensory systems in views of practical points. The organized evaluation of sensory electrophysiologic tests can be helpful in detecting and estimating the abnormalities in neurological diseases.

Keywords

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