[Clinical neurophysiological study of verbal and non-verbal sound perception: normal development of P300 event-related potential to different sound stimuli].

Developmental changes of P300 event related potential were evaluated in healthy children and adults aged from 7 to 29 years old, adopting 2 pairs of oddball stimuli: a non-verbal sound (tone burst: TB) pair and a verbal sound (VS) pair. P300 was evident for the target stimuli. In adult subjects, P300 was dominant at Pz for both stimuli. Peak latency of P300 was significantly longer for VS than for TB in both groups. P300 amplitude of the child group was higher than that of the adult group, however, there was no difference in P300 amplitude between stimuli conditions. Developmental changes of P300 from each stimuli condition were simulated by a quadratic equation. The age showing the shortest P300 peak latency was younger for TB (20.3 years) than for VS (23.6 years). The P300 peak latency reduced around 10 years old more rapidly for VS than for TB. In conclusion, there was no difference of the dominancy of P300 between the stimuli. The developmental changes of P300 were regulated by several components of the sound stimuli, such as their frequency.