Prediction of sensorineural hearing level from the brain stem evoked response

Correlational analysis was carried out between the auditory brain stem evoked response (BER) threshold, BER latency, and various audiometric indices in 275 ears with varying degrees and configurations of sensorineural hearing loss. Results confirm the importance of sensitivity in the 1 to 4-kHZ region to the brain stem response. Sensitivity over this frequency region is best predicted as 0.6 of the BER threshold. Brain stem evoked response latency in the 70- to 90-dB hearing level range increases about 0.2 ms for each 30-dB increase in the steepness of the audiometric contour between 1 and 4 kHZ. Finally, audiometric shape appears to be more important than absolute high-frequency sensitivity in determining BER latency.