Sensory perception thresholds show a large variability of absolute values in healthy persons.

What is it about?

Normative current perception thresholds (CPTs) are used for the evaluation of sensory function in a variety of diseases. We evaluated the reproducibility of CPT measurements with the sinusoidal current in healthy volunteers. We assessed the neuroselective CPT evaluations of the median and pudendal nerve in healthy volunteers at a repeated 1-week interval (T1 and T2). In the study group (N = 41) no difference between genders for age (MW-U: P = 0.91) and BMI (t-test: P = 0.18) were found. No significant difference between T1 and T2 was found (Paired t-test: all P-values > 0.05), although the intraclass correlation for each person was low. The variability of measures for the pudendal nerve was: ICC 2 kHz: 0.41; 250 Hz: 0.30; 5 Hz: 0.38, and for the median nerve respectively: 0.58; 0.46; 0.40. Normal CPTs were shown for the pudendal nerve: 2 kHz: 51%; 250 Hz: 76%; 5 Hz: 71%, and median nerve respectively: 78%; 98%; 80%. The pudendal nerve showed more deviating values compared to the median nerve.

Featured Image

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The pudendal and median nerves showed deviating CTP values. CPT values with a 1-week interval assessed with sinusoidal current showed a weak intraclass correlation.

Perspectives