Steady-state analysis of auditory evoked potentials over a wide range of stimulus repetition rates: Profile in adults

Objective : Quasi-steady-state responses were assessed over a wide range of stimulus repetition rates embracing well the traditionally measured transient AEPs (obligatory auditory evoked potentials of all latencies). Repetition rates of <10 Hz have received little attention in the context of the ASSR stimulus-response analysis approach which is speculated to provide technical advantages, if not additional information, over more traditional transient stimulus-response paradigms. Design : A measure introduced and defined as the sum of the response at the stimulus frequency and its harmonics. The magnitude of steady-state responses were measured at repetition rates from 0.75 to 80 Hz, using trains of repeated tone-burst stimuli. Study sample : Twenty-five normal-hearing adults. Results : Results show that the magnitudes of the response across repetition rates are largest at the two lowest rates, following trends expected from the transient AEP literature. Good reliability overall was observed for the harmonic sum. Conclusions : The analysis methods used in this paper may give information that will have application for clinical testing. Of pragmatic importance is that the rate profile could be determined without subjective wave identification and/or interpretation, and thus by a method that is inherently more objective than conventional AEP tests.