Systems and Methods for Measuring Complex Auditory Brainstem Response

Auditory stimuli and response analysis toolbox NU 2011-009 Inventors Nina Kraus* Trent G. Nicol Erika E. Skoe Abstract Northwestern researchers have developed a variety of advanced digital signal processing techniques (DSP) for the analysis of complex auditory brain responses (cABR) in order to assess the integrity of the auditory pathway. How the nervous system processes complex sounds needs to be understood, in order to improve hearing sensitivity measurements, detection of neural pathologies and assessment of audio devices. Until now the measurement of brainstem responses to auditory stimuli has been confined to simple analysis using click and tone stimuli. This limits the ability to study how the nervous system processes complex sounds and soundscapes. The invention is a toolkit comprised of two parts. The first is a library of complex auditory stimuli, which includes multiple syllables in different intonations and musical sounds from different instruments. The second is a collection of DSP routines that support the complex analysis of and additional collection of auditory stimuli. The cABR toolkit is the first of its kind, allowing flexible, user-defined, advanced analyses of responses to complex auditory stimuli. There are a number of systems on the market that can be used to collect evoked potentials originating from the brainstem. However, none have the built-in capacity to record and analyze cABRs in such a sophisticated and streamlined manner. Applications o Laboratory studies for the neural basis of reading and hearing in noise o Metric of auditory system plasticity o Systematic tracking of neural changes o Investigation of audio devices o cABR recording in non-standard environments o Auditory research in animal studies Advantages o Highly-flexible, user-defined o Reliable and sophisticated built-in recording and analysis capacity of cABRs o Integration into currently available evoked potentials systems Publications Skoe E, Kraus N, (2010) Auditory brainstem response to complex sounds: a tutorial. Ear and Hearing 31(3):302-324 Skoe E, Nicol T, Kraus N (2011) Cross-phaseogram: Objective neural index of speech sound differentiation. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 196(2): 308-317 IP Status: A patent application has been filed. Marketing Contact Maryam Saleh, Ph.D. Invention Manager (p) 847-467-3095 (e) [email protected]