Auditory brainstem response: a comparative study of ipsilateral versus contralateral recording in neurological disorders of children.

The auditory brain stem response (ABR) was studied in 103 normal and 90 neurologically abnormal children. The ABR was recorded simultaneously in Cz to the mastoid both ipsilateral and contralateral to the stimulated ear. A comparison between the ipsilateral and contralateral recording demonstrated that contralateral recording resulted in a small increase in the latency of peak V, whereas peak III showed a small latency reduction in the large majority of normal and neurologically abnormal children despite relatively large intersubject variability. There were some cases (cerebral palsy, infantile spasms) which demonstrated abnormal ABR only on contralateral recordings. Since most averaging systems have two channels, it is desirable to record the ABR simultaneously on bilateral recordings.