Auditory even-related brain potentials in hyperthyroidism

Several studies based on psychometric tests have demonstrated an impairment of cognitive functions in hyperthyroid patients. Long-latency auditory event related potentials (ERPs) allow the measurement of a kind of cerebral reaction time that is unavailable to psychometric tests. However, ERPs alterations in hyperthyroidism have been investigated only in experimentally induced hyperthyroidism in healthy subjects, but no study has reported on thyrotoxic patients so far. Therefore, we investigated alterations of P300 wave latency in hyperthyroid patients before and after antithyroid treatment. ERPs were elicited in 20 untreated patients with hyperthyroidism (mean age: 27.40 +/- 2.10 years) and in 30 sex-, age- and education-matched controls. ERPs recordings were repeated 4 months after attainment of euthyroidism. Untreated patients had longer mean P300 latencies when compared to those in controls (338.3 +/- 26.6) vs 320.7 +/- 16.2 msec, P = 0.020). Slowing of P300 latency was marked in 4 of 20 patients and its normalization was observed after treatment. The mean P300 latencies also returned to normal (320.5 +/- 15.5 msec) 4 months after achievement of euthyroidism. Our study shows that P300 is normal in most cases, while we have found in a subgroup of patients a small but statistically significant slowing. However, these alterations are reversed 4 months after attainment of euthyroidism.