40 Hz Auditory Steady-State Response: The Impact of Handedness and Gender

Abstract

The 40 Hz auditory steady-state response (ASSR) is a periodic response to a periodic stimulation. Its sources are located in the primary auditory cortex and the asymmetry of the planum temporale has previously been associated with hand preference and gender-related differences; thus subject's handedness and gender could potentially influence ASSRs. Nevertheless, electrophysiological studies of ASSRs are mainly dominated by right-handed participants and the observed findings can only be generalized to the right-handed populations. However, for a potential use of 40 Hz ASSR as a translational biomarker of neuropsychiatric disorders, it is important to investigate the response in association to handedness and gender. We included an equal number of left-handed and right-handed males and females and recorded EEG responses during left-ear, right-ear and both ears stimulation. The results of the study suggest that the processing of 40 Hz auditory stimulation depends on the subjects' gender and handedness: significantly lower phase-locking and strength of 40 Hz ASSRs were observed in left-handed females as compared to left-handed males, but right-handers did not differ in 40 Hz ASSRs. Our observation of the opposite impact of gender in the examined handedness groups stresses the importance of careful consideration of handedness and gender factors when evaluating the determinants of inter individual variability of 40 Hz ASSRs. This finding is of particular importance for clinical studies in psychiatry and neurology.

Tactile Cross-Modal Acceleration Effects on Auditory Steady-State Response

“…We could only recruit three women out of 12 subjects. Therefore, we could not analyze sex differences (Melynyte et al, 2018). Finally, we focused on the ASSR latency rather than the amplitude in this study.…”

Lateralized functional responses in the cortex arise from the dynamic interactions in the structural connectome

“…Characterizing hemispheric dominance in the functional specialization of sensory processing is a fundamental question in cognitive neuroscience. There are many factors that are posed as to influence lateralisation in brain including anatomical asymmetries, stimulus designs, sex and handedness of the participant (Hutsler & Galuske, 2003;Melynyte et al, 2017;Tervaniemi et al, 20 2000). The main contribution of our study is the demonstration of how functional lateralization of ASSR, is an outcome of the dynamical evolution of spatiatemporal brain patterns via neural interactions scaffolded by the structural connectome.…”

Effects of degree and symmetricity of bilateral spectral smearing, carrier frequency, and subject sex on amplitude of evoked auditory steady-state response signal

“…The ASSR is generally measured by a scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) in the vicinity of the primary auditory cortex (PAC) or the fronto-central locations according to the device settings (Tanaka et al 2013;Schwarz and Taylor 2005). The ASSR signal has been primarily utilized in the fields of auditory brain-computer interface (BCI), audiometric assessment for patients with autism or infants, and neuropsychiatry as a biomarker for cortical N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors and other neuropsychiatric disorders (Hosseinabadi and Jafarzadeh 2015;Swanepoel et al 2004;Maanen and Stapells 2010;Lin et al 2009;Sivarao et al 2016;Wang et al 2018;Melynyte et al 2018).…”

“…In many previous studies related to ASSR-based auditory BCI, the authors considered several systemic and environmental factors (e.g., frequencies of modulated stimuli, contact/environmental noises, patterns of auditory stimuli, and arrangements of audio sources) to improve the performance of their implemented algorithm (Matsumoto et al 2012;Nakamura et al 2013). However, the characteristics of the evoked ASSR signal can also be affected by the pathophysiological statuses of the left and right ear (i.e., the severity and clinical symptoms of hearing impairment) and the sex of the subject because they can affect the perception of the stimulus, the degree of concentration on the stimulus, comfort in concentration, hormonal production, hormone levels, anatomical factors, and the size of the PAC (Voicikas et al 2016;Zakaria et al 2016;Melynyte et al 2018). Therefore, to more effectively personalize the ASSR-based BCI algorithm according to the native hearing ability of an individual to improve system performance, the effects of the pathophysiological status of the ears and the sex of the subjects on the evoked ASSR signal characteristics-especially variations in the ASSR amplitude to a specific auditory stimulus-require investigation.…”

“…Melynyte et al investigated the effects of the handedness and sex of subjects on the phase-locking and strength of 40 Hz ASSRs using 44 participants (11 righthanded females, 11 left-handed females, 11 right-handed male, and 11 left-handed males; right-handed = 22 ± 1.8 years and left-handed = 23 ± 3.7 years). However, the researchers recruited only NH subjects (Melynyte et al 2018).…”