Abstract
The clinical management of glaucoma is currently focused on manifest stages of the diseases at which there are congruent losses of visual function and optic nerve tissue. Identification of patients at risk of developing glaucoma remains a challenge. Detection of retinal ganglion cell dysfunction in glaucoma suspects may represent a way of identifying patients at high-risk glaucoma and thus provide both a rationale and a target for treatment to change the natural history of the disease. This report provides a review of the current applications of the pattern electroretinogram (PERG) to investigate electrical responsiveness of retinal ganglion cells in early glaucoma.While the PERG technique has been in use since the 1980’s, only recently PERG methods have been developed with skin electrodes and automated analysis that expand the PERG application in the clinical setting.The PERG may be altered at stages of glaucoma that precede losses of visual field and optic nerve tissue. PERG alterations may be progressive and reversible after IOP lowering. PERG alterations may be inducible in susceptible eyes of patients at risk of glaucoma.