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Published on: May 10, 2019
Auditory brainstem response to paired clicks as a candidate marker of cochlear synaptopathy in humans
Haruna Fujihira1, Shimpei Yamagishi2, Shigeto Furukawa3
1NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Atsugi, Kanagawa, Japan; Department of Informatics, Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Objective:
This study aimed to evaluate whether auditory brainstem response (ABR) using a paired-click stimulation paradigm could serve as a tool for detecting cochlear synaptopathy (CS).
Methods:
The ABRs to single-clicks and paired-clicks with various inter-click intervals (ICIs) and scores for word intelligibility in degraded listening conditions were obtained from 57 adults with normal hearing. The wave I peak amplitude and root mean square values for the post-wave I response within a range delayed from the wave I peak (referred to as the RMSpost-w1) were calculated for the single- and second-click responses.
Results:
The wave I peak amplitudes did not correlate with age except for the second-click responses at an ICI of 7 ms, and the word intelligibility scores. However, we found that the RMSpost-w1 values for the second-click responses significantly decreased with increasing age. Moreover, the RMSpost-w1 values for the second-click responses at an ICI of 5 ms correlated significantly with the scores for word intelligibility in degraded listening conditions.
Conclusions:
The magnitude of the post-wave I response for the second-click response could serve as a tool for detecting CS in humans.
Significance:
Our findings shed new light on the analytical methods of ABR for quantifying CS.
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