The auditory evoked "off" response: sources and comparison with the "on" and the "sustained" responses

It is well known that tone bursts elicit a prominent N1/P2 complex in the auditory evoked potential (the on-response), but less is known about a morphologically similar complex (the off-response) that can be recorded under suitable stimulus conditions. The interaction between the two responses indicated that the responses were not physiologically independent. The present experiment employed neuromagnetic methods to determine the cortical sources of N1 and P2 on- and off-responses and their relation to other events observed in the auditory evoked field.

Five female and five male subjects with no history of otologic or neurological disorders and with normal audiological status participated in this study. Tone bursts of 2 sec duration (10 msec rise and decay time, cosine function), carrier frequency of 1 kHz, and intensity of 60 dB nHL (normative hearing level) were presented 512 times to the subject's right ear (contralateral to the investigated hemisphere) with an interstimulus interval randomized between 5 and 7 sec.

The present study is unique in that several components of the complex auditory evoked response (P1, N1on, P2on, sustained-field, N1off, P2off) were recorded and localized in the same subjects and in the same experiment. The source coordinates obtained for N1 and P2 on- and off-responses indicated that the two responses are generated by overlapping cortical regions. Sources for the P2 components were situated anterior and medial to sources for the N1 components and were indistinguishable from sources for the auditory sustained-field. An early P1on event preceded the N1on (but not the N1off) response and was spatially indistinguishable from the N1on. The equivalent source strength was greater for N1on and P2on sources compared with N1off and P2off sources.

The recoding process signaled by on-and off-responses may be a dynamic form of plasticity in the auditory cortex with a time constant on the order of hundreds of milliseconds, corresponding to the duration of sustained-responses released by acoustic changes and to the duration of the acoustic foreperiod that is necessary before on-and off-responses to acoustic changes can be observed.