Effects of Signal Type and Noise Background on Auditory Evoked Potential N1, P2, and P3 Measurements in Blast-Exposed Veterans.
Melissa A Papesh, Alyssa A Stefl, Frederick J Gallun and 1 others
PMID 32520849WHAT IT FOUND
Blast-exposed veterans reported more hearing difficulties and had slower P3 brain responses to tones, but did not perform worse on speech-in-noise tests.
Complex noise and speech did not make the group differences larger.
Key findings
01Blast-exposed participants reported significantly more hearing difficulties than controls, including telephone, fast speech, spoken lists, long conversations, and needing more time to process auditory information.
02P3 latencies were longer in blast-exposed participants, especially to tones, but reaction time and accuracy on the task and behavioral speech-in-noise scores did not differ significantly from controls.
03A regression model using N1, P2, and P3 responses predicted AzBio scores at 0 dB SNR, and P3 responses to babble predicted subjective hearing complaints.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was small, with 17 blast-exposed participants and 16 controls. The blast-exposed group was heterogeneous in age, number of blast exposures, and mTBI diagnosis, and 11 of 17 had a mTBI diagnosis. Most participants were male, so the results may not apply to women. 14 of 17 blast-exposed participants had PTSD, compared with 2 of 16 controls, and the study could not separate PTSD effects from blast exposure. The experimenters were not blinded to participant group or stimulus condition. Normal pure-tone thresholds do not rule out peripheral hearing damage, and the blast-exposed group had more hearing loss on average. The blast-exposed participants did not perform significantly worse on speech-in-noise tests, so findings may not apply to Veterans with measurable speech-in-noise deficits.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The article is listed as supported by U.S. government, non-P.H.S. research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that P3 latency is a ready-made clinical test for blast-related hearing problems. The sample was small, PTSD was more common in the blast-exposed group, and the blast-exposed participants did not perform worse on behavioral speech-in-noise tests.