Auditory evoked potentials in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type.

Dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) disrupts the function of the central auditory nervous system as a result of temporal lobe pathology. Auditory brain stem response (ABR) and middle latency responses (MLR) were studied in a group of patients with DAT to determine whether a correlate of dementia existed in these electrophysiological potentials. Comparison of absolute and interwave latencies on ABR, and absolute latency and amplitude of the MLR in patients with DAT and normal aged controls showed no significant differences between groups for any measure. Further, no relationship with degree of dementia or temporal lobe involvement, as assessed through dichotic speech recognition studies, and auditory evoked potentials could be demonstrated. It was concluded that the temporal lobe atrophy and hypometabolism seen in DAT is not generally sufficient to disrupt the generating of ABR and MLR potentials; however, slow cortical and cognitive evoked potentials may be more sensitive to central auditory nervous system impairment in DAT.