[Visual evoked potentials and functional asymmetry in children with with different degrees of intellectual retardation].

Visual evoked potentials (VEP) to flash and patterned visual stimuli have been recorded from occipital and central brain regions in 7-8-year-old boys with normal intellect (20 cases), with mental retardation (15 cases) and with oligophrenia of a debile degree (27 cases). A significant elongation of late-component latency has been revealed in motor brain areas VEP in oligophrenia group compared to normal subjects. A negative correlation between P190 component latency of motor area VEP to patterned visual stimulus and general and non-verbal intellectual indices has been stated in full right-handed subjects with intellectual deficiency. Such a relation was absent in right-handed patients with left dominant eye.