Objective: 

Go-NoGo task has been widely used to evaluate response activation and inhibition in normal subjects as well as patients with neuro-psychiatric disorders. The aim of the present study was to investigate habituation of event related potential (ERP) responses to auditory Go and NoGo stimuli.

Methods: 

ERPs were recorded with 30 electrodes using an auditory Go-NoGo paradigm from 38 healthy male volunteers (18–23 years). Go tones (1000 Hz) and NoGo tones (2000 Hz) with 50% probabilities were binaurally presented by headphones at 70 dB SPL. The amplitudes and latencies of the ERP responses in the first and the last half of the task were analyzed by ANOVA. Then, the interaction of the habituation with the scalp topography was tested using ANOVA after normalizing the data.

Results:The NoGo-P3 potential amplitudes were significantly lower in the last half of the task compared to the first half of the task at all leads (p<0.01) while Go-P3 potential amplitudes were not significantly different between the two periods (p>0.05). Also, interaction of the two periods of the task and antero-posterior distribution of the NoGo-P3 potential amplitudes was significant: decrease of the amplitude of NoGo-P3 potential at the fronto-central areas was bigger than the parietal area (p<0.05). After vector transformation, this significant interaction in the initial analysis turned out to be non-significant (p>0.05), which shows that habituation of Go-P3 responses are not topographic specificity.

Conclusions: 

Our results indicate that the NoGo-P3 potential was habituated whereas the Go-P3 potential did not undergo any habitual changes at all recording electrode sites.