[Evoked potentials of the human brain during prolonged fasting]

Abstract

Dynamics of the visual evoked potentials of human brain during a long-term alimentary starvation is studied. During a 14-day fasting in healthy male volunteers abrupt changes are found in an amplitude and shape of the evoked potentials in the site of occipital leads: increase of time and maximum amplitude of the response; level of residual murmur; duration and square of slow negative wave; integrated spectral densities (ISDs), ranged 0.1-1; 1-4 and 4-8 Hz; decrease of ISDs ranged 8-13 Hz. On a 14th day of food consumption, the measurements of all the evoke potential parameters are somewhat declined but significantly exceed the baseline levels. Also, fasting results in changing a pattern of spatial sequence of the evoked potentials: an increase of the mean values of response time in all the lead sites; a rise of maximum amplitude of response in occipital lead sites, and a slight statistically insignificant trend to a diminished amplitude of response in temporal lead sites.