A novel system for measuring visual potentials evoked by passive head-mounted display stimulators

Purpose The objective of this work is to evaluate the performances of a novel integrated device, based on passive head-mounted display (HMD), for the pattern reversal visual evoked potential (PR-VEP) clinical test. Methods Google Cardboard Ò is used as passive HMD to generate the checkerboard pattern stimuli through an Android Ò application. Electroencephalo- graphic signals are retrieved and processed over 20 subjects, 12 females and 8 males between 20 and 26 years. Morphological PR-VEPs and frequency response were compared with previous literature results, to test the reproducibility and the efficacy of the proposed solution. Results PR-VEPs evoked by our novel prototype showed typical triphasic waveforms in moderate agreement with those obtained with other more expensive HMDs and standard commercial devices.Statistical analysis did not highlight strong differences among the systems over the features analyzed except for the P100 amplitude and peak time (** p 0.005). Conclusion The proposed solution opens the door for a new generation of non-invasive first-level diagnostic devices of optic nerve pathologies inex- pensive and easy to access.