Conclusion

Abstract

Evoked-potential recording is now a well established laboratory technique. It remains primarily a research method, although it has found some practical applications in clinical diagnosis, e.g., in audiometric testing of nonverbal subjects (Callaway, 1969). The use of the method in clinical research has not been without controversy. This is of the kind ordinarily generated between more “basically” and more “clinically” oriented investigators when a new biological method appears. Those with a “basic” orientation believe that application of the method to clinical problems can have little value until all parametric studies have been performed and the factors that require experimental control are known. Some would go further and say that clinical correlations will be meaningless until the underlying physiological mechanisms have been worked out. On the other hand, the clinically oriented investigator takes the position that a major investment in parametric studies and research on mechanisms can be justified only by evidence that the biological phenomenon is clinically relevant. There is justification for both points of view. The view that has guided our own work is obviously the clinical one, since most of our parametric and animal studies have followed, rather than preceded, the finding of clinical correlates.