Abnormalities of ABR and auditory perception test findings in acquired palatal myoclonus

An auditory test battery consisting of pure tone audiometry, the auditory brainstem response (ABR), the nonsense monosyllable perception test, the dichotic listening test and the Token test were administered to three patients with palatal myoclonus. All patients had ABR abnormalities correlated with the location of brainstem lesions, despite relatively normal pure-tone threshold. In two of the three patients, both the nonsense monosyllable test and the dichotic listening test revealed dominance on the side ipsilateral to the lesion, while ABR abnormalities were present on the contralateral side. In one patient who had bilateral ABR abnormalities, both the monosyllable perception and dichotic listening test scores were poor for bilateral ears. These results suggest that brainstem lesions producing palatal myoclonus could have an effect on auditory perception.