174
2000Hz stimulus and 1 to 10 ms for
the tone burst stimulus at 500Hz.
Stimuli had linear envelope shapes
and, importantly, constant-onset
slopes. Only the initial past of the
stimulus was involved in eliciting
the ABR, except at very low
intensity levels at which later
portions were involved. For the
2000Hz stimulus, the response was
completely generated by the first
0.5 ms portion of a higher intensity
(50db) stimulus, and longer stimuli
had no effect on the response.
However, at lower intensity levels,
signals with a rise time of 0,1 ms
generated a completely developed
response (minimal latency and
maximum amplitude). Results at
500Hz were less consistent, perhaps
because neural units, according to
the authors, begin to respond to
individual
components
of
the
stimulus.
STIMULUS OFFSET ABR. | Basic
studies of the auditory CNS have
provided evidence of a variety of
functional neuron types (Tsuchitani,
1983). Two of these types are onset
neurons, which fire only at the onset
of a stimulus, and offset neurons,
which fire only at the offset of a
stimulus (when the stimulus is
turned off). As typically recorded,
ABR
is
thought
to
reflect
synchronous firing of onset neurons.
For a click stimulus with the
conventional
duration
of
0,1
milliseconds, stimulus onset and
offset occur almost simultaneously,
and identification of any offset
contribution to the response is
impossible. Over the ears, papers
have
sporadically
appeared
describing AERs generated by the
offset portion of stimuli. Early work
in this area was conducted with the
ALR (Rose & Malone, 1965). An
400
sec.
Nonetheless,
click
duration
should
be
routinely
specified and used in a consistent
manner
in
clinical
ABR
measurement.
A
complete
discussion of stimulus duration,
although seemingly straightforward,
actually leads to concerns about the
possible effects of related stimulus
characteristics.
For
example,
duration
directly
influences
frequency content of the stimulus
and to the audibility of the stimulus.
Duration effects also interact with
the envelope of the rising portion of
the stimulus and whether the onset
slope is constant or variable. Finally,
current understanding of stimulus
duration effects is limited to data
obtained from young, normalhearing subjects. There is published
study of click duration in older
subjects and/or in those with
hearing impairment, even though
these and perhaps other subject
characteristics might be expected to
interact with duration.
Other stimulus Types
FILTERED CLICKS. | In addition to
clicks
and
tone
bursts,
miscellaneous additional types of
acoustic stimuli have been reported
in ABR measurement, often in
animal models rather than in
patients (e.g., Mller & Jho, 1989).
Although none of these stimuli enjoy
widespread clinical application yet,
some are worth nothing. For
example,
filtered
clicks
are
produced when a wide-spectrum
click (e.g., the usual unfiltered or
raw click resulting from delivering a
rectangular electric pulse to a
transducer) is passed through a set
or series of filters to produce
transient
stimuli,
with
energy
centered at desired frequencies
(Arlinger, 1981; Davis & Hirsh,
click
stimulus.
A
detailed
explanation of the model of cochlear
biomechanics and the mathematical
functions important in the rationale
for and generation of chirps is far
beyond the scope of this discussion.
The article authored by Fobel
and Dau (2004) provides a useful
source of information on the topic.
Fobel and Dau (2004) designed two
chirp stimuli for elicitation of the
ABR. Onereferred to as the O-chirp
was derived from previously
pusblished group-delay data (Shera
& Guinan, 2000) from stimulus
frequency OAEs (the term O chirp
refers to the derivation from an OAE
stimulus). The other stimulus
referred to as the A-chirpwas
designed with reference to data
(Gorga, Kaminski, Beauchaine, &
Jesteadt, 1988) demonstrating the
relationship between tone burst
frequency and ABR latency (the
term A chirp refers to the
derivation from ABR data). ABRs
generated by these two chirp stimuli
were compared also to a previously
developed type of chirp (Dau et al.,
2000)the M-chirpbased on a
model (the M refers to Model)
for
producing
a
flat-spectrum
stimulus. Fobel and Dau (2004)
recorded ABRs from 9 normalhearing adult subjects with the
different chirp stimuli, and with
conventional click stimuli. Since the
frequency composition of the chirp
stimuli covered a range from 0.1 to
10000Hz, durations for the chirp
stimuli were remarkably long in
comparison to clicks. Duration for
the O-chirp was 13.52 ms, whereas
duration for the M-chirp was 10-32.
For the A-chirp, however, duration
varied as a function of stimulus
intensity, from 12.72 ms at 10dB SL
(sensation level) to 5.72 ms at 60
dB SL. Fobel and Dau (2004)
reported no difference in the ABRs
Although
the
techniques
may
potentially increase efficiency of
ABR data collection and reduce test
time, clinical confirmation is lacking.
STIMULUS TRAINS. | Tietze (1980)
reported two clever techniques for
simultaneous
stimulation
and
recording of the ABR and ALR. The
methodological
problem
in
simultaneously recording these two
AERs is that the ABR requires stimuli
with rather abrupt onset (e.g., 2 to 4
cycles), a similarly brief duration,
and short interstimulus intervals
(e.g., 25 ms), whereas the ALR is
best elicited with stimuli having
relatively leisurely rise/fall times