Exploring the Use of Iterative Recordings of Frequency-Following Responses to Uncover Hidden Hearing Loss

Hidden hearing loss may be related to a loss or a dysfunction of auditory nerve fibres associated with noise exposure history and aging. Such functional degradation should reduce the stimulus information encoded in the auditory nerve, but information pooling across fibres may result in frequency-following responses (FFRs) being barely different from normal responses. This study investigated the possibility of amplifying the reduction of stimulus information by recording the FFR iteratively; i.e. by converting the FFR to a stimulus file and recording another FFR in response to it. Iterated FFRs were found to contain detectable stimulus information, but there was no evidence that they reflected hidden hearing loss. (C) 2018 The Author(s). Published by S. Hirzel Verlag . EAA. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license.