Background and Aim: Following an early visual deprivation, the neural network involved in processing auditory spatial information undergoes a profound reorganization. In order to investigate this process, event-related potentials provide accurate information about time course neural activation as well as perception and cognitive processes. In this study, the latency and amplitude of auditory P300 were compared in sighted and early blind individuals in age range of 18-25 years old.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, auditory P300 potential was measured in conventional oddball paradigm by using two tone burst stimuli (1000 and 2000 Hz) on 40 sighted subjects and 19 early blind subjects with mean age 20.94 years old.

Results: The mean latency of P300 in early blind subjects was significantly smaller than sighted subjects (p=0.00.( There was no significant difference in amplitude between two groups (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Reduced latency of P300 in early blind subjects in comparison to sighted subjects probably indicates the rate of automatic processing and information categorization is faster in early blind subjects because of sensory compensation. It seems that neural plasticity increases the rate of auditory processing and attention in early blind subjects.

Background and Aim: Previous studies suggest that auditory stimulus frequency in normal subjects contribute to both P300 amplitude and latency measures. As occipital cortex devotes to other modalities including auditory inputs, the purpose of this study was to determine the effects of stimulus frequency in early blind subjects.
Methods: fifteen early blind subjects (8 males and 7 females) with mean age of 25.13±4.27 years were tested. Cognitive potential P300 was recorded in response to high (1000/2000 Hz ) and low (250/500 Hz) frequencies auditory stimuli using an oddball task in 70 dB nHL. While participants answered to target stimulus, amplitude and latency of P300 was recorded.
Results: With high frequency stimuli, mean amplitude in early onset blind subjects obtained 14.13 ±5.53µv and was 17.59±8.17µv with low frequency. With high and low frequency, mean latency of P300 obtained 295.60±31.33ms and 317.38±21.71ms respectively.
Comparison of results between two stimuli showed that there were statistically significant differences between amplitudes (p=0.008) and latencies (p=0.001) of cognitive potential P300.
Conclusion: Changing low frequency to high frequency results in decreasing both amplitude and latency. It seems that auditory stimuli frequency affect the P300 parameters in blind subjects.