Efficacy of stimulus intensity increases and decreases as inhibitors of the acoustic startle response

Abstract

The human startle eyeblink response can be inhibited by a change in the stimulus environment briefly before the startling stimulus; both stimulus presentation (prepulse) and cessation of background sound (gap) can result in startle inhibition. More intense prepulses often result in greater inhibition, and this study (N = 53 college students) examined whether graded decreases in sound energy relative to a steady background noise (a "partial gap") would follow this same pattern of inhibition. Embedded in a 65 dB steady background noise were 100 dB white noise startle stimuli preceded at 120 ms on some trials by stimulus intensity increases or decreases of 5, 10, or 15 dB relative to background. Results showed that startle inhibition was graded by amount of change relative to background, such that greater increases or decreases resulted in greater inhibition. Also, increases were more effective startle inhibitors than decreases at equivalent levels of change from background. These results demonstrate that the neural centers responsible for startle inhibition are responsive to both increases and decreases in stimulus intensity, and are sensitive to amount of change, not simply whether a change occurs. These findings may have implications for the development of a screening method for a hearing disorder called tinnitus.

The gap prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle (GPIAS) paradigm to assess auditory temporal processing: Monaural versus binaural presentation

“…All in all, there is still no scientific consensus around the ability of the GPIAS technique in detecting tinnitus (Eggermont, 2013; Galazyuk & Hébert, 2015). However, there is considerable research conducted to improve it in both animals and humans (Blumenthal & Peterson, 2017; Longenecker et al., 2018; Peterson, 2018; Peterson & Blumenthal, 2018; Schilling et al., 2017; Wilson et al., 2019).…”

Scare Me, I Dare You: A Neuropsychological Account of the Horror Film

“…He claims that lesions to nearly any brain region (or even complete decerebration) causes the organism to startle just as easily as if their brain were fully intact. Yet, other lines of research claim that the intensity of the human startle response can be influenced by factors that lie outside of the brainstem such as emotion (Blumenthal, 2000;Larrauri et al, 2011;Peterson & Blumenthal, 2018). These findings do not need to be at odds.…”

Modulation der akustisch evozierten Schreckreaktion durch Präpulse und deren Anwendung zur Bestimmung reflexbasierter Unterscheidungsschwellen

“…Dieser Zusam-menhang wurde ebenfalls in der vorliegenden Arbeit beobachtet mit Schwellenwerten von +2.7 dB für Aufwärtssprünge und -5.9 dB für Abwärtssprünge bei einer Hintergrundfrequenz von 8 kHz. Auch in Untersuchungen an Vögeln (Hienz et al, 1980) und Menschen (Sinnott et al, 1985;Peterson und Blumenthal, 2018) wurde dieses Verhältnis beschrieben. Die Intensitätsdiskriminierung von Menschen lag bei Schwellen von 1.0 -1.8 dB (Sinnott et al, 1985), während jene von Ratten im Bereich von 1.2 -6.5 dB, abhängig von der Richtung und Hintergrundfrequenz der getesteten Stimuli, zu finden waren (Hack, 1971;Syka et al, 1996).…”