P300 latency and amplitude in Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review

The P300 plays a key role as a method for monitoring and evaluating dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. Objective: The goal of this study was to search for articles which analyzed P300 latency and amplitude values in Alzheimer's disease. Methods: We searched in the following databases: Web of Science, Pub Med, Psyc Info, Medline, Biological Abstracts and Scielo using the following keywords: speed of information processing, processing speed, information processing, aged, older, elderly, older people, alzheimer dementia, alzheimer disease, Alzheimer and cross-references of selected articles. Results: We found eight studies matching the inclusion criteria. These studies showed that there is a consensus on a P300 latency increase of elderly patients with Alzheimer's disease compared with subjects without the disease. However, it appears that, with respect to the P300 amplitude, there is still no consensus; however, it may be related to different methodological variables adopted in the reviewed studies. Conclusion: There is a need to standardize the variables involved in P300 measurement for senior citizens with Alzheimer's disease in order to be able to compare P300 latency and amplitude values for this population.