Concentrated pitch discrimination modulates auditory brainstem responses during contralateral noise exposure.
This study examined a notion that auditory discrimination is a requisite for attention-related modulation of the auditory brainstem response (ABR) during contralateral noise exposure. Given that the right ear was exposed continuously with white noise at an intensity of 60-80 dB sound pressure level, tone pips at 80 dB sound pressure level were delivered to the left ear through either single-stimulus or oddball procedures. Participants conducted reading (ignoring task) and counting target tones (attentive task) during stimulation. The oddball but not the single-stimulus procedures elicited task-related modulations in both early (ABR) and late (processing negativity) event-related potentials simultaneously. The elicitation of the attention-related ABR modulation during contralateral noise exposure is thus considered to require auditory discrimination and have the corticofugal nature evidently.
Laboratory of Cognitive Psychophysiology, Center for the Research and Support of Educational Practice, Tokyo Gakugei University, Tokyo, Japan. kazunari@u-gakugei.ac.jp
Kazunari
K
Ikeda
Takahiro
T
Sekiguchi
Akiko
A
Hayashi
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000502:physiology*; D016057:Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009622:Noise; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult