Bidelman Gavin M, Pousson Monique, Dugas Calli, Fehrenbach Amy
Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN.
School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN.
J Am Acad Audiol. 2018 Feb;29(2):164-174. doi: 10.3766/jaaa.16167.
Auditory-evoked potentials have proven useful in the objective evaluation of sound encoding at different stages of the auditory pathway (brainstem and cortex). Yet, their utility for use in clinical assessment and empirical research relies critically on the precision and test-retest repeatability of the measure.
To determine how subcortical/cortical classes of auditory neural responses directly compare in terms of their internal consistency and test-retest reliability within and between listeners.
A descriptive cohort study describing the dispersion of electrophysiological measures.
Eight young, normal-hearing female listeners.
We recorded auditory brainstem responses (ABRs), brainstem frequency-following responses (FFRs), and cortical (P1-N1-P2) auditory-evoked potentials elicited by speech sounds in the same set of listeners. We reassessed responses within each of four different test sessions over a period of 1 mo, allowing us to detect possible changes in latency/amplitude characteristics with finer detail than in previous studies.
Our findings show that brainstem and cortical amplitude/latency measures are remarkably stable; with the exception of slight prolongation of the P1 wave, we found no significant variation in any response measure. Intraclass correlation analysis revealed that the speech-evoked FFR amplitude and latency measures achieved superior repeatability (intraclass correlation coefficient >0.85) among the more widely used obligatory brainstem (ABR) and cortical (P1-N1-P2) auditory-evoked potentials. Contrasting these intersubject effects, intrasubject variability (i.e., within-subject coefficient of variation) revealed that while latencies were more stable than amplitudes, brainstem and cortical responses did not differ in their variability at the single subject level.
We conclude that (1) the variability of auditory neural responses increases with ascending level along the auditory neuroaxis (cortex > brainstem) between subjects but remains highly stable within subjects and (2) speech-FFRs might provide a more stable measure of auditory function than other conventional responses (e.g., click-ABR), given their lower inter- and intrasubject variability.
听觉诱发电位已被证明在客观评估听觉通路不同阶段（脑干和皮层）的声音编码方面很有用。然而，其在临床评估和实证研究中的效用严重依赖于测量的精度和重测重复性。
确定皮层下/皮层类听觉神经反应在听众内部和听众之间的内部一致性和重测可靠性方面如何直接比较。
一项描述性队列研究，描述电生理测量的离散情况。
八名年轻、听力正常的女性听众。
我们在同一组听众中记录了由语音诱发的听觉脑干反应（ABR）、脑干频率跟随反应（FFR）和皮层（P1-N1-P2）听觉诱发电位。我们在1个月的时间内，在四个不同的测试 session 中分别重新评估了反应，这使我们能够比以前的研究更详细地检测潜伏期/振幅特征的可能变化。
我们的研究结果表明，脑干和皮层的振幅/潜伏期测量非常稳定；除了P1波略有延长外，我们发现任何反应测量都没有显著变化。组内相关分析显示，在更广泛使用的强制性脑干（ABR）和皮层（P1-N1-P2）听觉诱发电位中，语音诱发的FFR振幅和潜伏期测量具有更高的重复性（组内相关系数>0.85）。与这些受试者间效应形成对比的是，受试者内变异性（即受试者内变异系数）表明，虽然潜伏期比振幅更稳定，但在单个受试者水平上，脑干和皮层反应的变异性没有差异。
我们得出结论：（1）听觉神经反应的变异性在受试者之间沿听觉神经轴向上（皮层>脑干）增加，但在受试者内保持高度稳定；（2）鉴于语音FFR在受试者间和受试者内的变异性较低，它可能比其他传统反应（如短声ABR）提供更稳定的听觉功能测量。
