TY - JOUR
T1 - Auditory threshold sensitivity of the human neonate as measured by the auditory brainstem response
AU - Sininger, Yvonne S.
AU - Abdala, Carolina
AU - Cone-Wesson, Barbara
N1 - Funding Information:
tor of the Infant Auditory Research Lab at the Women and Children's Hospital of LAC+USC Medical Center, to Cathy Luckoski, M.A., for data gathering and analysis, Michael Ekelid, M.S., for assistance in stimulus generation and calibration and to Dr. Curtis Ponton for editorial comments. This work was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communicative Disorders, DC00021 and by the House Ear Institute.
PY - 1997/2
Y1 - 1997/2
N2 - The absolute auditory sensitivity of the human newborn infant was investigated using auditory brainstem response thresholds (ABR). ABRs were elicited with clicks and tone-bursts of 0.5, 1.5, 4.0 and 8.0 kHz, embedded in notched noise, in healthy, full-term human neonates and young adults with known, normal-hearing sensitivity. Stimuli were calibrated using a probe microphone positioned near the tympanic membrane in the ear canal of each subject to control for differences in resonance characteristics of infant and adult ear canals. ABR thresholds were also characterized relative to group psychophysical thresholds (nHL) and relative to individual psychophysical threshold or sensation level (SL) for the adult subjects. Infant ABR thresholds measured in p.e. SPL for all stimuli are elevated by to 3-25 dB relative to adult thresholds. Threshold elevation is greatest for the high-frequency stimuli. Results are consistent with neural immaturity for high-frequency stimuli in the auditory system of human neonates.
AB - The absolute auditory sensitivity of the human newborn infant was investigated using auditory brainstem response thresholds (ABR). ABRs were elicited with clicks and tone-bursts of 0.5, 1.5, 4.0 and 8.0 kHz, embedded in notched noise, in healthy, full-term human neonates and young adults with known, normal-hearing sensitivity. Stimuli were calibrated using a probe microphone positioned near the tympanic membrane in the ear canal of each subject to control for differences in resonance characteristics of infant and adult ear canals. ABR thresholds were also characterized relative to group psychophysical thresholds (nHL) and relative to individual psychophysical threshold or sensation level (SL) for the adult subjects. Infant ABR thresholds measured in p.e. SPL for all stimuli are elevated by to 3-25 dB relative to adult thresholds. Threshold elevation is greatest for the high-frequency stimuli. Results are consistent with neural immaturity for high-frequency stimuli in the auditory system of human neonates.
KW - auditory brainstem response
KW - auditory threshold
KW - frequency-specific response
KW - neonate
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U2 - 10.1016/S0378-5955(96)00178-5
DO - 10.1016/S0378-5955(96)00178-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 9119764
AN - SCOPUS:0031081570
VL - 104
SP - 27
EP - 38
JO - Hearing Research
JF - Hearing Research
SN - 0378-5955
IS - 1-2
ER -