Psychophysical and behavioral peripheral and central auditory tests

Cochlear dysfunction is associated with styrene exposure in humans

“…In addition, in a previous study, we found that styrene exposure was associated with temporal processing difficulties [21]. Temporal processing is one of the functions associated with the central auditory nervous system [48]. The present study did not involve investigating temporal processing or other psychoacoustical tasks associated with the central auditory system.…”

Hearing and dementia

“…Pure tone audiometry and otoacoustic emissions (supplemented by brainstem auditory evoked potentials if available) are relatively simple and well-tolerated techniques to assess cochlear and ascending auditory pathway function in cognitively impaired patients. Measurement of speech-in-noise perception (Table 1 ) more closely reflects ‘real world’ hearing impairment than pure tone audiometry and (if impaired disproportionately to other indices of cochlear or ascending auditory pathway function) may provide an index of auditory cortical processing; this can be supplemented by tests such as gap-in-noise perception or dichotic listening that depend more sensitively on cortical processing of sound [ 75 ] (Table 1 ). If the patient or caregiver reports symptoms suggesting auditory cognitive dysfunction, a more comprehensive evaluation may be appropriate: age norms are available for the Newcastle Auditory Battery [ 76 ] and Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Amusia [ 77 ].…”

On the Etiology of Listening Difficulties in Noise Despite Clinically Normal Audiograms

“…Audiologic assessment for APD has traditionally consisted of psychoacoustic tests with reasonably good sensitivity and specificity for detecting frank lesions of the CANS ( Musiek 1983a ; Musiek & Pinheiro 1987 ; Jerger et al 1988 ; Musiek et al 1991 , 2005, 2011; Rappaport et al 1994 ; Hurley & Musiek 1997 ; Boscariol et al 2011 ; Musiek & Weihing 2011 ; Bamiou et al 2012 ; Musiek & Chermak 2015 ). For example, in a recent study on 20 adult patients with neurologically confirmed bilateral cortical lesions that included auditory cortex (caused by epilepsy, stroke, tumors, or head trauma), and 29 age-matched controls, Musiek et al (2011 ) reported a sensitivity of 80% and specificity of 93% for the dichotic digits ( Musiek 1983b ) and frequency patterns tests ( Musiek 1994 ) when used as a two-test battery (i.e., failure required performance below the control group 95% CI on both tests).…”

“…On the other hand, if the prevalence of CANS lesions among people with listening difficulties and normal audiograms was only 1%, the positive predictive value of Musiek et al’s (2011 ) test battery would drop to just 10%. The predictive value would also drop if HHL or cognitive deficits also resulted in poorer performance on such tests of “AP” ( Smurzynski & Probst 1999 ; Neijenhuis et al 2004 ; Glyde et al 2013 ; Musiek & Chermak 2015 ).…”

“…Moore et al’s message was that applying uncontrolled tests of AP to the general primary school population would tend to catch children with cognitive issues rather than sensory ones. While these findings have been criticized on several grounds ( Musiek & Chermak 2015 ), the general approach of employing subtest difference scores to control for cognitive confounds seems to be a very useful one, as further illustrated below.…”