Decreased habituation of midlatency auditory evoked responses in Parkinson's disease

The P1 midlatency auditory evoked potential was studied in patients with Parkinson's disease and compared to that in age-matched controls. Habituation of the potential was determined by using a two-click stimulus paradigm in which the stimuli were presented at 250-, 500-, and 1,000-ms interstimulus intervals. Results showed that habituation of the P1 potential had a statistically significant decrease at the 250-ms and 500-ms interstimulus intervals in patients with Parkinson's disease compared to normal controls. The degree of decreased habituation was found to increase with severity of the disease such that stage 5 patients showed greater decreases in habituation compared to stage 4, as did stage 4 compared to stage 3. These findings may be explained by the presence of a dysregulation of sensory processing, possibly by elements of the reticular activating system, including the pedunculopontine nucleus, in Parkinson's disease.