Simulation on the Comparison of Steady-State Responses Synthesized by Transient Templates Based on Superposition Hypothesis

Abstract

The generation of auditory-evoked steady-state responses (SSRs) is associated with the linear superposition of transient auditory-evoked potentials (AEPs) that cannot be directly observed. A straightforward way to justify the superposition hypothesis is the use of synthesized SSRs by a transient AEP under a predefined condition based on the forward process of this hypothesis. However, little is known about the inverse relation between the transient AEP and its synthetic SSR, which makes the interpretation of the latter less convincible because it may not necessarily underlie the true solution. In this study, we chose two pairs of AEPs from the conventional and deconvolution paradigms, which represent the homo-AEPs from a homogenous group and the hetero-AEPs from two heterogeneous groups. Both pairs of AEPs were used as templates to synthesize SSRs at rates of 20–120 Hz. The peak-peak amplitudes and the differences between the paired waves were measured. Although amplitude enhancement occurred at ~40 Hz, comparisons between the available waves demonstrated that the relative differences of the synthetic SSRs could be dramatically larger at other rates. Moreover, two virtually identical SSRs may come from clearly different AEPs. These results suggested inconsistent relationships between the AEPs and their corresponding SSRs over the tested rates.

Improved Transient Response Estimations in Predicting 40 Hz Auditory Steady-State Response Using Deconvolution Methods

“…Regarding the weights of both components, MLR accounts for the majority of ASSR, which is similar to the one reported in a previous study (Bohorquez and Ozdamar, 2008 ), although the exact amounts of contributions from these two components are different. Since it is possible for multiple different transient templates in generating a similar synthetic ASSR response due to the ill-posed property of the deconvolution process (Sparacino et al, 2004 ; Tan et al, 2015 ), more studies are needed to investigate this issue.…”

“…These findings suggest that ASSR could be a valuable biomarker in diagnosing various neurological and psychiatric disorders (McFadden et al, 2014 ; Thune et al, 2016 ). Despite these findings, the application of ASSR is still experiencing major problems due to the lack of knowledge and intensive debates regarding the underlying mechanism of ASSR (Ross et al, 2005 ; Bohorquez and Ozdamar, 2008 ; Presacco et al, 2010 ; Lutkenhoner and Patterson, 2015 ; Tan et al, 2015 ; Lutkenhoner, 2016 ).…”