Transcranial magnetic stimulation and acoustic trauma or hearing loss in children

Abstract

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a non-invasive method used to assess motor function in humans; however, some reports suggest it may cause internal ear damage (cochlear). Eighteen patients with normal auditory function (ages 2 months to 16 years, mean 6.8 years), two medical doctors and two technicians who performed the studies were tested with brain stem auditory evoked potentials, otoacoustic emissions, acoustic reflex and a pure tone audiometric and logoaudiometric test when possible, before and after transcranialmagnetic stimulation for central motor conduction studies in different neurological conditions. All the tests were repeated two weeks and two months later. Patients had no auditory protection nor history of seizures. Motor evoked potentials and silent periods were recorded from the right abductor pollicis brevis and the first dorsal interosseous muscles at rest and during weak voluntary contraction when possible. A mean of 48 transcranial magnetic stimulations with 50%–75% Tesla intensity were used. Natural logarithmic transformation of latency and amplitude data had a normal distribution. There were no significant differences in auditory function testing.

Keywords:

• Transcranial magnetic stimulation
• acoustic trauma
• deafness
• otoacoustic emissions
• evoked potentials
• auditory function