Effect of oral contraceptives on visual evoked potentials in premenopausal females

Introduction: The sex hormones are not only restricted to the influence the reproductive organs and processes in the female body, but also have great effect on the functioning of the nervous system. Evoked potentials are one of the many electrophysiological parameters, used to assess the neuronal functioning. The aim of this prospective study was to analyze the effects of oral contraceptive pills on the visual evoked potentials in premenopausal females. Methods: The VEP was measured in 76 females during follicular and luteal phases of their menstrual cycle, and latencies of the three waveforms N70, P100 and N135 were measured. All the subjects were prescribed oral contraceptive pills containing 0.03 mg estradiol and 0.15 levonorgestrel. The VEP latencies were measured again after 4 months of oral contraceptive intake. Result: The result showed an increase in all the three latencies of VEP waveforms due to oral contraceptive intake. Although the increase in latencies were not significant (P>0.05). Conclusion: Hence it was concluded that VEP seems to be influenced by the female steroid hormones during the menstrual cycle and also due to oral intake in the form of contraceptives

A novel device to measure tactile reaction time

Introduction: Reaction Time has been widely used as one of the measures of mental chronometry since very long. Most of the work has been done with visual and auditory reaction time. Till now reaction time has never been measured by giving tactile stimuli. Hence we have designed a new device to provide different tactile stimuli and to simultaneously measure the time taken by the subject to respond to it. Probably for the first time in the history of mental chronometry Tactile Choice Reaction Time has been compared between males and females. Methods and Materials: The study was conducted among 53 male and 34 female healthy subjects who were between the age group of 18- 24 years. A new instrument has been designed by the author of this article to deliver tactile stimuli on the skin of the subject and to measure the reaction time for that particular sensory modality. Result: All the reaction times were found to be significantly faster in males than in females except for fine touch. For fine touch although the RT is faster in males but the difference is not statistically significant. Conclusion: Present study has reconfirmed the gender differences in case of tactile choice reaction time also. It is going to be really interesting with the use of this new device to find out the relationship of various Tactile Choice Reaction Times with these conditions