Korean Journal of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery  2018;61(11):573-579

doi:10.3342/kjorl-hns.2017.00976

The Objective Test of Cochlear Dead Region Using Acoustic Change Complex: A Preliminary Report.

Soojin KANG 1 ; Juhyun HAN ; Jihwan WOO ; Hee Sung PARK ; Il Joon MOON ; Kyusung CHOI ; Sung Hwa HONG

Affiliations

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Keywords

Acoustic change complex; Cochlear dead region; Electrophysiological approach; Hearing loss; Threshold-equalizing noise

Country

Republic of Korea

Language

Korean

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Cochlear dead region (CDR) is a region in the cochlear where hearing loss has occurred due to damage to the inner hair cells and/or neurons. Recently, a subjective test involving a pure-tone test in the presence of threshold-equalizing noise (TEN) was introduced to identify CDR. However, for uncooperative patients, such a subjective method would be unsuitable and objective methods would be needed instead to detect CDR. The acoustic change complex (ACC) is an evoked potential elicited by changes in the ongoing sound. In this study, we developed an objective method of identifying CDR by combining ACC response with a TEN test, namely the TEN-ACC test, and investigated its feasibility in normal-hearing listeners. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: Ten normal-hearing subjects participated in this study. All subjects underwent both behavioral TEN test and electrophysiological TEN-ACC test. The stimuli for the TEN-ACC test consisted of TEN and embedded pure tones with different frequencies/signals to noise ratios (SNRs). To identify the thresholds, the range SNR of stimulation was varied from 0 to 20 dB, in stages of 4 dB. RESULTS: The ACC responses of all subjects who participated in this study were well elicited by stimuli developed for the TEN-ACC test. We confirm that the pure-tones embedded in TEN elicited the objective ACC response. CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggest that the novel TEN-ACC test can be applied to evoke ACC in normal-hearing listeners. Future research should incorporate hearing-impaired listeners to determine the feasibility of the TEN-ACC test as an objective method to identify CDR.