Figure 3.

Application of ERG gain analysis in ω-3 deficiency. Averaged group ERG waveforms showing the effect of ω-3 dietary deficiency on the (a) rod-isolated a-b wave complex and (b) STR (reproduced with permission from Nguyen et al. [28]). In Panels (c)–(h) an ERG gain of unity is represented by the thin diagonal lines. The thick black lines represent the ERG gain determined in Figure 2 and Table 1. Grey bars represent the 95% confidence interval for the ω-3 deficiency treatment group. The horizontal arrows represent the predicted downstream loss given the measured upstream change. Asterisks (∗) indicate statistically significant direct loss at the respective component (P < 0.05). Thus ω-3 deficiency produces (c) PII amplitude reductions that can be expected from the PIII_amp decline, and (d) pSTR_amp  losses are greater than predicted by ERG gain. The predicted pSTR_amp loss (arrow) falls outside the 95% confidence limits (grey bar) for the measured pSTR_amp loss in the treated group (filled square). (e) nSTR change can be accounted for by the reduction in PII_amp. In terms of timing ((f), (g), and (h)) the predicted delays (arrows) fall within the 95% confidence interval of the treated groups. Thus the delays in the PII, pSTR, and nSTR can be accounted for by the delay in the outer retinal PIII.