New developments in the clinical application of evoked potentials.

The introduction of the pattern-evoked response and of far field recording of the auditory and somatosensory short latency responses has provided to major advances in the clinical application of evoked potentials. The sensitivity of the pattern response in the detection of minimal lesions of the visual pathways is now well established, and makes the test of particular value in the diagnosis of demyelinating disease and in the early detection of compressive lesions. The short latency auditory and somatosensory responses also show a high incidence of abnormalities in demyelinating disease. The technique will not compete directly with such well established methods as audiometry and perimetry, but it can provide valuable additional information, not accessible to these methods, particularly where the lesions are clinically silent or inconspicuous.