Detection of the binaural interaction component in the auditory brainstem response

Abstract

In humans, the binaural interaction at the brainstem level has been studied for over 15 years. The binaural interaction component (BIC) is obtained by subtracting the summed auditory brainstem response (ABR) in the monaural stimulus mode from the ABR obtained in the binaural stimulus mode. By nature of this subtraction process, the signal-to-noise ratio of the difference waveform is poor, requiring an objective detection criterion to decide whether a significant BIC is present. In this study, the effectiveness of two analysis methods was compared. The first method is the "3 SD' method, which is based on a signal-to-noise evaluation. The second method is a template matching method, in which templates are derived from normal hearing subjects' responses and individual responses are cross-correlated with these templates. The templates were allowed to shift over a range of -0.8 to 0.8 ms in search of the maximum correlation coefficient. Thirty-nine subjects with normal hearing and five patients with a unilateral profound hearing loss participated in the study. ABRs were obtained with rarefaction and condensation clicks at a rate of 15/s and a level of 70 dB nHL. Latencies of the ABR waves I, III and V for all normal hearing subjects and for the normal ear of the patients were within the normal range. The efficiencies of both methods, defined as the number of normal hearing adults with a significant BIC plus the number of patients without a significant BIC divided by the total number of subjects, were determined. The results show that the "3 SD' method is superior to the template matching method: the efficiencies were 95% and 70% respectively, when responses to rarefaction and condensation clicks were taken together. With the "3 SD' method, a significant BIC is demonstrated in almost all normal hearing subjects (97%). However, the "3 SD' method also falsely indicated a significant BIC in one patient. These results suggest that the BIC may have clinical value in studying binaural interaction in humans.

The Binaural Interaction Component in Human ABR Is Stable within the 0- to 1-ms Range of Interaural Time Differences

“…Significant peaks in the binaural difference waveform have been demonstrated in most normal-hearing subjects once the averaging is based on a large number of stimulations [Jones and Van der Poel, 1990;Gunnarson and Finitzo, 1991;Levine and Davis, 1991;Stollman et al, 1996]. The present data are in agreement with those from previous studies, i.e.…”

“…At the brainstem level, investigation of the auditory brainstem response (ABR) has shown the binaurally evoked potentials to differ in amplitude from the sum of the two corresponding monaurally evoked potentials. Although a great deal of data is available on binaural interaction as reflected in human ABR [Hosford et al, 1979;Dobie and Norton, 1980;Decker and Howe, 1981;Levine, 1981;Wrege and Starr, 1981;Dobie, 1982;Kelly-Ballweber and Dobie, 1984;Dobie and Wilson, 1985;Furst et al, 1985;Fullerton et al, 1987;Fowler and Swanson, 1988;McPherson et al, 1989;Jones and Van der Poel, 1990;Gunnarson and Finitzo, 1991;Levine and Davis, 1991;McPherson and Starr, 1993;Parthasarathy and Moushegian, 1993;Lasky et al, 1995;McPherson and Starr, 1995;Stollman et al, 1996], few ABR studies have been focused on the effects of interaural time difference (ITD).…”

Measures of Binaural Hearing in Children with a History of Asymmetric Otitis media with Effusion

“…Results for the OME children were compara ble with normative data. The absence of (sig nificant) BIC peaks in normal-hearing sub jects has been mentioned before in the litera ture on binaural interaction [25,28]. We be lieve that, at present, the results are too vari able, even for normal-hearing adults, to be of clinical value.…”

Interaural delay-dependent changes in the binaural difference potential of the human auditory brain stem response

“…For baseline-to-peak-measurements peaks with voltages V bp smaller than 3r BD (99.7% confidence level for Gaussian measurement errors) were not regarded as significant and hence were discarded. The 3r-criterion was proposed by Stollman et al (1996) and found to be superior to a template matching method for the detection of significant BD components. However, the measurement of the residual noise r, and therefore, the detection of significant BD components, is far more accurate in the present study since it relies on the analysis of single sweeps in contrast to the conventional methods relying on the comparison of two (sub-)averages or the variance in the averaged prestimulus interval Riedel et al, 2001).…”