Auditory brainstem responses obtained with randomised stimulation level

Abstract

Objective

To present randomised stimulation level (RSL) – a stimulation paradigm in which the level of the stimuli is randomised, rather than presented sequentially as in the conventional paradigm.

Design

The value of RSL was evaluated by (i) comparing the morphology of auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) elicited by the conventional and RSL paradigms, and by (ii) an online survey investigating the hearing comfort of the stimulus sequence.

Study sample

ABRs were obtained from 11 normal-hearing adults (8 females, 25–29 years). The online survey was administered to 238 adults from the general community.

Results

Results showed that (i) both stimulation paradigms elicit ABR signals of similar morphology, (ii) RSL provides a faster comprehensive representation of the ABR session, and that (iii) the general population found RSL stimuli to be more comfortable.

Conclusions

The simultaneous evaluation of all ABR traces of the session provided by RSL has potential to improve the identification of ABR components by enabling clinicians to make use of the response tracking strategy from the start of the test, which is critical in situations where ABRs present an abnormal morphology. New research opportunities and the clinical potential of RSL are discussed.

Keywords:

• Response tracking
• response detection
• hearing comfort
• test time

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge all the volunteers who participated in the EEG sessions and completed the online survey. The authors are also profoundly thankful for the constructive input of the anonymous reviewers and associate editor. Portions of this research were presented at the XXVII International Evoked Response Audiometry Study Group Biennial Symposium (Martinez et al., 2021).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially supported by (i) the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the project Speech-AEPs (PID2020-119073GB-I00), (ii) the Andalucía European Regional Development Fund Operational Program 2014-2020 under the project Binaural-Eval (B-TIC-382-UGR20), and (iii) the Australian Government Department of Health.