Efferent Control of the Human Auditory System

The effects of auditory efferent activity on peripheral physiology may be examined by presenting broadband noise (BBN) to the contralateral ear during otoacoustic emission (OAE) recordings. The presentation of BBN typically produces a reduction of OAE amplitudes in comparison to a condition without BBN. This is termed contralateral suppression. Limited information exists regarding the effects of contralateral BBN on responses observed at higher levels in the auditory system. The present study employed this paradigm to investigate interactions of attention and laterality on the transient evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE), auditory brainstem response (ABR) and cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEP) P1-N1-P2. TEOAEs were evoked by 60 dB SPL clicks; ABRs and CAEPs were evoked by 60 dB SPL 2.0 kHz tone pips in 15 normally hearing adults. Four conditions were employed for each ear: 1) quiet (no noise); 2) 60 dB SPL contralateral BBN; 3) words (at -3 dB SNR) embedded in 60 dB SPL contralateral BBN while subjects classified words as animal versus food items; 4) words from condition #3 played backwards and embedded in 60 dB SPL contralateral BBN. For TEOAEs: 1) more suppression was evident in the active attention condition than the passive listening conditions and 2) right ear OAE amplitudes for the 8-18 ms time period exhibited more suppression in the presence of BBN for all noise conditions, although this did not meet statistical significance. For the ABR experiment, amplitudes in the noise conditions decreased in all epochs for the right ear, but not for the left. For the CAEP experiment, asymmetries were evident in temporal regions and an effect of contralateral noise was evident. The outcome of this investigation suggests that efferent activation by noise and active attention has diverse modulatory effects on electroacoustic and electrophysiologic responses along the auditory pathway