A Study of Auditory Brainstem Response Using Chained Stimuli and BERA Phone

Abstract

Chained train stimuli involve presentation of chain of different intensity click stimuli instead of a click stimulus at single intensity. The instrument is programmed to average response for click stimulus at different intensity separately. This enables recording of response to several intensity signals in a short time. BERA phone was designed to reduce the preparation time of subject while recording ABR. A review of literature suggest that chained stimuli is time efficient than automated ABR. However, no comparison has been made between conventional ABR and chained stimuli ABR, Hence present study aimed to make comparison between chained stimuli ABR and conventional ABR. Another aim was to make comparison between BERA phone and conventional ABR. In the first experiment comparison was made between chained train stimuli and conventional ABR. In the second experiment comparison was made between BERA phone and conventional ABR in infants. Results showed that chained train stimuli waveform was better than conventional ABR at higher intensity in all the subjects whereas near threshold chained train stimulus ABR waveform was poorer than conventional ABR. Chained stimuli ABR threshold was significantly poorer than conventional ABR. The mean latency for chained stimuli ABR was significantly higher than conventional ABR, but the difference in amplitude was not statistically significantly Result revealed that waveform morphology, latency and amplitude of ABR as well as ABR threshold obtained using BERA phone were comparable with those obtained using conventional ABR. Preparation time of subjects using BERA phone was less compared to conventional ABR.