Che Awang Che Muhammad Amir, Abdul Wahab Noor Alaudin, Mohammad Tahir Siti Aisyah, Maamor Nashrah, Zakaria Mohd Normani, Wahab Suzaily
Audiology Program, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 50300, Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Centre for Rehabilitation and Special Needs Studies (iCaRehab), Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 50300, Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sci Rep. 2025 Mar 20;15(1):9662. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-94412-4.
Auditory hallucination is a complex and not yet fully understood phenomenon, and further research is necessary to elucidate the underlying mechanisms. Previous research has shown the possible contribution of abnormal efferent auditory pathways to auditory hallucinations. Given the structural and functional top-down connection between the auditory cortex and the cochlea, this study investigated the efferent auditory system in schizophrenia patients experiencing verbal auditory hallucinations (VAHs). Alternate Auditory Attention (ALAUDIN©) tasks were integrated with Contralateral Suppression of Otoacoustic Emissions (CSOAE) tasks as an assessment method. A total of 57 healthy controls (HCs) and 10 schizophrenia patients-five with recent hallucinations (S group) and five with nonrecent hallucinations (S group) participated. Contralateral suppressors, which included white noise (WN) alone and WN in combination with ALAUDIN© tasks, were integrated with an otoacoustic emission (OAE) system to measure the suppression of cochlear outer hair cells. While no significant differences in suppression were found between the left and right ears across all groups, the S group demonstrated significantly greater suppression than did the HC group for contralateral suppressor 4 (CS4). Notably, incorporating the ALAUDIN© tasks could be used to measure abnormalities in the efferent auditory pathway in patients with schizophrenia with VAHs. These results suggest that the ALAUDIN©-CSOAE test could be used to examine efferent auditory pathways and differentiate schizophrenia patients with recent VAHs from healthy individuals, but further research with larger sample sizes is warranted to validate these findings.
幻听是一种复杂且尚未被完全理解的现象，有必要进行进一步研究以阐明其潜在机制。先前的研究表明，异常的传出听觉通路可能与幻听有关。鉴于听觉皮层与耳蜗之间存在结构和功能上的自上而下的联系，本研究调查了有言语幻听（VAH）的精神分裂症患者的传出听觉系统。将交替听觉注意力（ALAUDIN©）任务与对侧耳声发射抑制（CSOAE）任务相结合作为一种评估方法。共有57名健康对照者（HC）和10名精神分裂症患者参与，其中5名有近期幻听（S组），5名有非近期幻听（S组）。将包括单独白噪声（WN）以及WN与ALAUDIN©任务相结合的对侧抑制器与耳声发射（OAE）系统相结合，以测量耳蜗外毛细胞的抑制情况。虽然所有组的左右耳在抑制方面均未发现显著差异，但S组在对侧抑制器4（CS4）方面的抑制作用明显大于HC组。值得注意的是，纳入ALAUDIN©任务可用于测量有VAH的精神分裂症患者传出听觉通路的异常情况。这些结果表明，ALAUDIN©-CSOAE测试可用于检查传出听觉通路，并区分有近期VAH的精神分裂症患者与健康个体，但需要更大样本量的进一步研究来验证这些发现。
