Aim. The Federal State Educational Standard of Higher Education prescribes providing the educational process in accordance with the individual and typological features of students. The nature of adaptation shifts in students depends on ethnic, ecological, and morphological indicators determining the functional status of the body. Its functional status and functional abilities conditioned by academic and professional activities are determined by the cerebral process, which influences the efficiency of adaptation and cognitive performance in general. The article deals with studying the features of psychophysiological potential in Russian and Kazakh first-year female students during their adaptation to studying at the pedagogical university. Materials and methods. We conducted the diagnostics of the functional status of the central nervous system and cognitive performance in first-year female students at pedagogical universities. The average age of participants was 17.9 years. The total sample (n = 120) consisted of the Russian and Kazakh students living in Kostanay (Kazakhstan) and Chelyabinsk (Russia). A simple eye motor response (SEMR) and a complex eye motor response (CEMR) to a light stimulus were measured with the NS-Psychotest equipment. The calculated data are the following: the functional status of the system; response stability; level of functional abilities. These data were used as a basis for the assessment of cognitive performance in the participants of the study. Results. The results obtained characterize the neuro-dynamic basis of first-year students’ adaptation expressed in the average level of CNS activity, mobility of nervous processes, and optimal functional abilities. In the conditions of the average intragroup expression of the functional criteria of the central nervous system better cognitive processes for the processing of sensory information were revealed in students from Chelyabinsk compared to Kostanay. Conclusion. The analysis of the data obtained revealed the regional specifics of the average values of chronoreflexometry in first-year students, namely a significantly higher level of neural interaction and sensorimotor processing in first-year students from Chelyabinsk.