Sex influence on somatosensory evoked potentials in Thais.

ABSTRACT

Short latency somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) is a new noninvasive electrophysiological technique that is very useful in the assessment of proprioceptive afferent system in man. Limited normative data in Asians were studied in Taiwan and Japan only. As yet there are no normal values for Thais. The latencies and central conduction times of the SSEPs in 112 neurologically normal Thais, aged 18-74 years were reported and the influence of sex difference investigated. The subjects enrolled were 58 males and 54 females with a mean height of 164.31+7.86 cm and 158.89+5.87 cm respectively. the latencies of brachial plexus, cervical cord and somatosensory cortex in males were significantly longer than for females (p<0.05). But the central conduction tines from brachial plexus to cervical cord and somatosensory cortex were not significantly different (p>0.05). However, this latency difference betweem males and females is probably due to height differences (p<0.001).