Cognitive deficit in HIV-infected adult women: An event related potentials (P300) study

The P300 (P3) component of the auditory Event-Related Potential (ERP) waveform is a sensitive and clinically useful marker of central nervous system impairment. The amplitude (in muV) and latency (in ms) of the P3 component of the auditory ERP were used in the present study to investigate differences between HIV-asymptomatic, HIV-symptomatic, and HIV-negative control adult (18--35 years old) women under three different task conditions. Results indicated that P3 amplitude measures were consistently greater in controls than in the asymptomatic and symptomatic groups for all task conditions and at all electrode locations, suggesting that the available level of attentional resources are reduced similarly in both symptomatics and asymptomatics. P3 latency measures revealed that processing speed by asymptomatics is more similar to controls than it is to symptomatics, indicating that speed of processing is compromised in symptomatics, and possibly, to a lesser degree in asymptomatics.