On the terminology of auditory steady-state responses. What differentiates steady-state and transient potentials?

Recording human auditory steady-state responses (ASSR) at different frequencies allows objective assessment of auditory thresholds. Common practice has been to record ASSR to pure tones that are sinusoidally modulated in amplitude and frequency. Recently, optimized chirp stimuli have been proposed to evoke transient as well as steady-state responses. Because of the resulting uncertainty about the different methods, this paper aims to reconsider the terminology of transient and steady-state responses. Two experiments demonstrate the smooth transition between transient and steady-state responses. In experiment 1, click-evoked auditory brainstem responses (ABR) were recorded over a wide range of stimulus repetition rates (24/s to 72/s). In experiment 2, auditory steady-state responses were recorded for the same stimulus repetition rates, using three different stimulus types: an amplitude modulated 1-kHz tone (AM), a 1-kHz tone-burst (TB) and a flat-spectrum chirp. Experiment 1 demonstrates the merging of the typical ABR wave complexes at higher repetition rates, forming a steady-state response. This effect can only be observed if the time window is extended far beyond the window traditionally used for clinical ABR recordings. Experiment 2 reveals similar ASSR amplitude spectra regardless of the stimulus type and repetition rate used. Steady-state responses can be evoked for a large variety of stimulus types and repetition rates. Thus, from a clinician's point of view, steady-state responses cannot be considered a new type of evoked responses. They differ from transient responses primarily in the frequency response method and the longer timeframe required.