Evaluation of Contralateral Suppression of Otoacoustic Emissions in Bharatanatyam Dancers and Non-Dancers

OBJECTIVES: There is limited literature regarding the objective estimation of auditory attention in healthy individuals who regularly practice dance. This study attempted to evaluate the contralateral suppression of otoacoustic emissions (OAE) in Bharatanatyam dancers and non-dancers. MATERIALS and METHODS: The study included 40 adults (20 dancers and 20 non-dancers) with normal hearing. The differences in the contralateral suppression of distortion product OAE between the groups were compared. RESULTS: The results of the present study revealed that there was an increased amount of suppression of OAE in dancers compared with non-dancers. It suggests that dance practice enhances sensory perception and improves auditory attention. The constant practice of dance could have led to plasticity of the efferent auditory system. CONCLUSION: Thus, dance training may be used to strengthen efferent auditory system functioning. However, further studies witha larger sample size are essential for better generalization of the results.