Auditory brainstem response latency in forward masking, a marker of sensory deficits in listeners with normal hearing thresholds.

Auditory brainstem response latency in forward masking, a marker of sensory deficits in listeners with normal hearing thresholds. Hear Res. 2017 Feb 01;: Authors: Mehraei G, Paredes Gallardo A, Shinn-Cunningham BG, Dau T Abstract In rodent models, acoustic exposure too modest to elevate hearing thresholds can nonetheless cause auditory nerve fiber deafferentation, interfering with the coding of supra-threshold sound. Low-spontaneous rate nerve fibers, important for encoding acoustic information at supra-threshold levels and in noise, are more susceptible to degeneration than high-spontaneous rate fibers. The change in auditory brainstem response (ABR) wave-V latency with noise level has been shown to be associated with auditory nerve deafferentation. Here, we measured ABR in a forward masking paradigm and evaluated wave-V latency changes with increasing masker-to-probe intervals. In the same listeners, behavioral forward masking detection thresholds were measured. We hypothesized that 1) auditory nerve fiber deafferentation increases forward masking thresholds and increases wave-V latency and 2) a preferential loss of low-SR fibers results in a faster recovery of wave-V latency as the slow contribution of these fibers is reduced. Results showed that in young audiometrically normal listeners, a larger change in wave-V latency with increasing masker-to-probe interval was related to a greater effect of a preceding masker behaviorally. F...
Source: Hearing Research - Category: Audiology Authors: Tags: Hear Res Source Type: research