Temporal masking of auditory evoked brainstem responses in human newborns and adults

Temporal masking effects on brainstem evoked responses (BERs) were studied in normal human newborns and adults. Forward masking prolonged the latencies of the newborn BERs significantly longer than adult BERs. The effect of backward masking on BER latencies for both newborns and adults was small, suggesting that either backward masking effects for these stimuli are mediated by structures rostral to the brainstem or that backward masking does not affect the latency of the BER. Increasing the duration of the forward masker prolonged BER latencies more for newborns than adults. Increasing the intensity of the masker prolonged BER latencies for both newborns and adults, however, there were no significant age-intensity interactions.