80 Hz auditory steady-state responses (ASSR) at 250 Hz and 12,000 Hz

Although measurement of the detection limits of the 80 Hz auditory steady-state response (ASSR) has proven to be a reasonably reliable tool in estimating hearing sensitivity in the mid-conventional audiometric frequencies (e.g. 1000 and 2000 Hz), results in the literature suggest potentially diminishing performance at 500 Hz and above 4000 Hz. The primary goal of this work was to examine the accuracy of threshold estimation via ASSR measurement for carriers more toward the audiometric extremes. At the same time, different stimulus and recording protocols than those commonly employed in ASSR testing were examined. Using a two-channel recording system, ASSRs were obtained from 15 normal-hearing young adults for an amplitude-modulated carrier of 250 Hz and repeated tone bursts of 10,000-16,000 Hz, gated using a Blackman window. Results attest to the ability to record ASSRs to a wide range of carrier frequencies but also suggest that accuracy of threshold estimation suffers toward the audiometric extremes. Feasibility of ASSR-based high-frequency audiometry is demonstrated in principle, but it is not clear that this method will permit adequate sensitivity and accuracy to support such applications as ototoxicity monitoring.