Linear and nonlinear components of human electroretinogram.

We compared electroretinographic (ERG) responses to uniform-field and a variety of pattern stimuli using both transient and steady-state analyses. Evidence is provided that for all of these stimuli, the peak at high temporal frequencies in the steady-state response corresponds to the fast wave of the transient response and that the peak at low temporal frequencies corresponds to the slow wave of the step response. A variety of contrast-modulated grating stimuli were used to demonstrate that the fast, high-frequency response can be regarded as the sum of two components, an "odd-symmetric" component, which behaves linearly and is independent of spatial frequency, and an "even-symmetric" component, which behaves nonlinearly and has a band-pass spatial-frequency dependence. The prevailing distinction that is made between pattern and uniform-field ERGs is a consequence of the fact that the uniform-field ERG is dominated by the odd-symmetric (linear) component, whereas the so-called pattern (contrast reversal) ERG reveals the even-symmetric (nonlinear) component in isolation. Since a uniform field can also drive the nonlinear component, the present dichotomy ("luminance" versus "pattern") can be better understood in terms of the linear and nonlinear components of the response rather than in terms of the stimuli that produce them.