Aging and the processing of sound duration in human auditory cortex
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Updated: Sep 23, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Jodi M Ostroff1, Kelly L McDonald, Bruce A Schneider
1Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, 3560 Bathurst Street, M6A 2E1 ON, Toronto, Canada.
Abstract:
Age-related declines in coding the fine temporal structure of acoustic signals is proposed to play a critical role in the speech perception difficulties commonly observed in older individuals. This hypothesis was tested by measuring auditory evoked potentials elicited by sounds of various durations in young, middle-aged and older adults. All stimuli generated N1 and P2 waves that peaked at about 104 and 200 ms post-stimulus onset. The N1 amplitude increased linearly with increases in the tonal duration in young, middle-aged, and older adults. The P2 amplitude also increased linearly with signal duration, but only in young and middle-aged adults. The results demonstrate that the N1 and P2 waves can resolve duration differences as short as 2-4 ms and that normal aging decreases the temporal resolving power for processing small differences in sound duration.
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