Effects of Contralateral Noise on the 20-Hz Auditory Steady State Response - Magnetoencephalography Study

Abstract

The auditory steady state response (ASSR) is an oscillatory brain response, which is phase locked to the rhythm of an auditory stimulus. ASSRs have been recorded in response to a wide frequency range of modulation and/or repetition, but the physiological features of the ASSRs are somewhat different depending on the modulation frequency. Recently, the 20-Hz ASSR has been emphasized in clinical examinations, especially in the area of psychiatry. However, little is known about the physiological properties of the 20-Hz ASSR, compared to those of the 40-Hz and 80-Hz ASSRs. The effects of contralateral noise on the ASSR are known to depend on the modulation frequency to evoke ASSR. However, the effects of contralateral noise on the 20-Hz ASSR are not known. Here we assessed the effects of contralateral white noise at a level of 70 dB SPL on the 20-Hz and 40-Hz ASSRs using a helmet-shaped magnetoencephalography system in 9 healthy volunteers (8 males and 1 female, mean age 31.2 years). The ASSRs were elicited by monaural 1000-Hz 5-s tone bursts amplitude-modulated at 20 and 39 Hz and presented at 80 dB SPL. Contralateral noise caused significant suppression of both the 20-Hz and 40-Hz ASSRs, although suppression was significantly smaller for the 20-Hz ASSRs than the 40-Hz ASSRs. Moreover, the greatest suppression of both 20-Hz and 40-Hz ASSRs occurred in the right hemisphere when stimuli were presented to the right ear with contralateral noise. The present study newly showed that 20-Hz ASSRs are suppressed by contralateral noise, which may be important both for characterization of the 20-Hz ASSR and for interpretation in clinical situations. Physicians must be aware that the 20-Hz ASSR is significantly suppressed by sound (e.g. masking noise or binaural stimulation) applied to the contralateral ear.

Concurrent measures of contralateral suppression of transient-evoked otoacoustic emissions and of auditory steady-state responses

“…Contralateral suppression of the 40-Hz ASSR has been demonstrated previously (Galambos and Makeig, 1992;Maki et al, 2009;Kawase et al, 2012;Kiyokawa et al, 2012;Usubuchi et al, 2014). However, the physiologic source of the contralateral-suppression effect has yet to be determined.…”

“…Increasing the click rate to measure 80-Hz ASSRs would increase the likelihood of ipsilateral MOC activation and MEMR activation (Boothalingam and Purcell, 2015), so it may not be feasible to use a click-evoked paradigm as in the current study to assess the 80-Hz ASSR. A click rate slower than 40 Hz [e.g., 20 Hz, where robust contralateral suppression of ASSRs can be obtained (Usubuchi et al, 2014)] could be used to avoid ipsilateral MOC activation and MEMR while still allowing for concurrent measurement of TEOAEs and of ASSRs. However, relative to the 40-Hz ASSR, amplitudes of ASSRs <40 Hz are lower and the noise floors are higher (Picton et al, 2003), which could require longer data-collection times than those seen in the current study.…”

“…First, ASSRs can be measured at suprathreshold stimulus levels in ears with significant hearing loss and demonstrate similar amplitudes as normal-hearing individuals (Rodriguez et al, 1986;Vander Werff and Brown, 2005;Leigh-Paffenroth and Murnane, 2011). Second, ASSR amplitudes decrease in the presence of contralateral noise (Maki et al, 2009;Kawase et al, 2012;Kiyokawa et al, 2012;Usubuchi et al, 2014), which may be due at least in part to MOC activity. Third, contralateral suppression of auditory neural responses is often larger than contralateral suppression of OAEs (Puria et al, 1996;Chabert et al, 2002;Lichtenhan et al, 2016).…”

40‐Hz oscillations underlying perceptual binding in young and older adults

“…We reported previously the effect of contralateral multitalker noise on auditory 40‐Hz oscillations (Ross, Miyazaki, & Fujioka, ). Another recent study (Usubuchi et al, ) showed that white noise modulated 40‐Hz steady‐state responses; however, the effect was smaller at 20 Hz, emphasizing that concurrent noise interacted specifically with a 40‐Hz network. We demonstrated that an equivalent neural mechanism exists in the somatosensory system, for which concurrent finger stimulation interrupted 40‐Hz oscillations but did not modulate the 20‐Hz oscillations (Ross, Jamali, Miyazaki, & Fujioka, ).…”

Impact of Audio-Visual Asynchrony on Lip-Reading Effects -Neuromagnetic and Psychophysical Study-

“…The detailed conditions of the MEG system used in the study were described previously [39]. Briefly, the sensors, which consisted of first-order axial gradiometers with a baseline of 50 mm, were arranged in a uniform array over a helmet-shaped surface at the bottom of the dewar vessel.…”