Biology subjects

Polonenko, M. J.

Publications and source records attributed to Polonenko, M. J..

10 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Optimal parameters for measuring multiband auditory brainstem responses to continuous speech

Accurate clinical hearing assessment depends on efficient, engaging measures designed to evaluate ecologically relevant stimuli. Often brief tones or narrowband noise stimuli are used, providing a useful but limited snapshot of hearing function. Including dynamic speech offers a means to capture how the hearing system encodes complex sounds critical for everyday communication. Here we describe the optimal parameters for using audiobook continuous speech with the multiband peaky speech paradigm to measure frequency-specific auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) to standard audiological octave bands from 500-8000 Hz in each ear simultaneously. Using computational modeling and direct human ABR testing in adults with normal hearing, we demonstrate that continuous speech signals with a chirp phase profile and fundamental frequency (f0) lowered to the range of 90-110 Hz evoke the largest ABR wave V amplitudes. This amplitude boost occurs when any narrators f0 is lowered to this optimal range, but the largest responses occur for narrators with original f0s below 170 Hz. We also confirmed that different narrator speech stimuli with these optimized parameters can evoke similarly sized ABRs, but some minor differences remain for testing time. Ultimately, optimizing phase-f0 parameters substantially sped up the median testing time to obtain robust audiobook-based multiband ABRs to within 14 minutes, thereby making this paradigm more feasible for future research and clinical translation.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Bone conducted responses using the parallel auditory brainstem response (pABR) paradigm

ObjectivesAuditory brainstem responses (ABRs) are used to diagnose hearing loss across multiple frequencies in infants and others who cannot participate in behavioral testing. The parallel ABR (pABR) paradigm measures response waveforms to all frequencies from 500- 8000 Hz in both ears all at once, rather than serially in one ear at a time. Work so far has been with air conducted stimuli through insert earphones, but bone conducted stimuli are also an essential part of diagnosing the type of hearing loss by determining the relative contributions of conductive and sensorineural hearing loss. This study aimed to confirm the feasibility of bone conduction pABR. DesignWe recruited a cohort of young adults with normal hearing. An intensity series of two-channel ABRs were measured to pABR stimuli played through ER-2 insert earphones as well as with a B-71 bone vibrator with contralateral masking. Behavioral thresholds were also measured to compare dB nHL correction factors. To keep sessions under 3.5 hours only one ear was tested with bone conduction. The ear with bone conduction and the order of transducers was counterbalanced across participants. Waveform morphologies for each transducer were compared by their wave V latencies and amplitudes and residual noise. ResultsFor the same dB nHL levels, responses to both transducers aligned well and wave V amplitudes and latencies were similar. While stimulus artifacts can be an issue with bone conduction, the steps taken to mitigate it in air conduction pABR were also effective for bone conduction: clear bone conducted responses were measured and residual noise was similar for both transducers. Bone conducted responses to 8 kHz were weak, which was not surprising given the physics of bone conduction and the output capabilities of the bone vibrator. As expected, behavioral thresholds were higher for pABR than pure tone stimuli, and by the same offset for both transducers. The dB nHL values differed due to the difference in reference equivalent threshold levels for inserts and the bone vibrator. ConclusionsAir and bone conduction provided similar waveforms, indicating that bone conduction pABR is feasible. Together with establishing dB nHL values, this work represents an important step towards translating the pABR for diagnosing all types of hearing loss.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Characterizing Simultaneously Recorded Auditory Brainstem and Middle Latency Responses Using the Parallel Auditory Brainstem Response Paradigm

PurposeThe auditory brainstem response (ABR) and middle latency response (MLR) are used to characterize hearing but typically require separate recordings due to differing optimal parameters and setups in clinical systems. Advances such as the parallel ABR (pABR) paradigm now allow simultaneous recording of both responses, enabling more comprehensive assessments. We evaluated this simultaneous recording approach by characterizing responses at near- and suprathreshold levels using parameters optimized for pABR. MethodsThis study used an open dataset [1] of pABR recordings from 20 normal hearing adults to tone-pip stimuli at five frequencies, six presentation rates, and two intensities. ABR (I, III, and V) and MLR (P0, Na, Pa, Nb, Pb) waves were analyzed for presence, latency, and amplitude using linear mixed effect modeling. ResultsAt both levels, ABR wave V and MLR waves Na and Pa were the most consistently identifiable and largest peaks across frequencies, rates, and participants. Frequency and rate changes affected ABR wave V amplitude more than the MLR peaks, whose amplitudes and latencies remained comparatively stable across the moderate and soft levels used in this study. ConclusionABR wave V and MLR waves Na and Pa are robust and consistently identifiable with pABR-optimized parameters. A simultaneous recording approach that leverages visualization of all three components could both assess auditory function across more areas of the auditory system using a moderate suprathreshold level, and support detection/interpretation of smaller wave Vs for threshold estimation, particularly for broader low frequency responses.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

The relationship between auditory brainstem responses, cognitive ability, and speech-in-noise perception among young adults with normal hearing thresholds

The goal of this research was to determine the contributions of auditory neural processing and cognitive abilities to predict performance on a speech-in-noise perception task in young, normal hearing adults. Two experiments were performed, each with separate cohorts of [~]30 young adults with normal hearing who performed a competing talker task which included a high-pass filtered condition that was designed to be more sensitive to auditory nerve functioning than are commonly used speech-in-noise perception tests. Predictors of performance on this competing talker task included ABR waves I and V metrics and cognitive test scores. Experiment one included click ABRs at a moderate level commensurate with the level of the competing talker task, as well as the cognitive digit span working memory test. Experiment two included high-intensity click clinical ABRs and three cognitive tests from the NIH Toolbox V3 that assessed working memory, cognitive flexibility and attention, and inhibitory control: List Sorting Working Memory, Dimensional Change Card Sort, and Flanker Inhibitory Control and Attention tests, respectively. Performance on the high-pass filtered competing talker task varied across participants in both experiments. This variability was predicted by performance on the test of inhibitory control, but not the tests involving working memory or cognitive flexibility, nor by any of the auditory processing metrics from moderate or high-intensity click ABRs. Among two groups of young adults with normal hearing, cognitive factors with very similar demands to the competing talker task seem to play the greatest role in speech-in-noise perception.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

The effect of speech masking on the human subcortical response to continuous speech

Auditory masking--the interference of the encoding and processing of an acoustic stimulus imposed by one or more competing stimuli--is nearly omnipresent in daily life, and presents a critical barrier to many listeners, including people with hearing loss, users of hearing aids and cochlear implants, and people with auditory processing disorders. The perceptual aspects of masking have been actively studied for several decades, and particular emphasis has been placed on masking of speech by other speech sounds. The neural effects of such masking, especially at the subcortical level, have been much less studied, in large part due to the technical limitations of making such measurements. Recent work has allowed estimation of the auditory brainstem response (ABR), whose characteristic waves are linked to specific subcortical areas, to naturalistic speech. In this study, we used those techniques to measure the encoding of speech stimuli that were masked by one or more simultaneous other speech stimuli. We presented listeners with simultaneous speech from one, two, three, or five simultaneous talkers, corresponding to a range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNR; Clean, 0, -3, and -6 dB), and derived the ABR to each talker in the mixture. Each talker in a mixture was treated in turn as a target sound masked by other talkers, making the response quicker to acquire. We found consistently across listeners that ABR wave V amplitudes decreased and latencies increased as the number of competing talkers increased. Significance statementTrying to listen to someone speak in a noisy setting is a common challenge for most people, due to auditory masking. Masking has been studied extensively at the behavioral level, and more recently in the cortex using EEG and other neurophysiological methods. Much less is known, however, about how masking affects speech encoding in the subcortical auditory system. Here we presented listeners with mixtures of simultaneous speech streams ranging from one to five talkers. We used recently developed tools for measuring subcortical speech encoding to determine how the encoding of each speech stream was impacted by the masker speech. We show that the subcortical response to masked speech becomes smaller and increasingly delayed as the masking becomes more severe.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Fundamental frequency predominantly drives talker differences in auditory brainstem responses to continuous speech

Deriving human neural responses to natural speech is now possible, but the responses to male- and female-uttered speech have been shown to differ. These talker differences may complicate interpretations or restrict experimental designs geared toward more realistic communication scenarios. This study found that when a male and female talker had the same fundamental frequency, auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) were very similar. Those responses became smaller and later with increasing fundamental frequency, as did click ABRs with increasing stimulus rates. Modeled responses suggested that the speech and click ABR differences were reasonably predicted by peripheral and brainstem processing of stimulus acoustics.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Multisensory perceptual learning in virtual reality may facilitate transfer to untrained locations but is impacted by training procedures.

Visual training improves performance in visually-intact and visually-impaired participants, making it useful as a rehabilitation tool. An interesting question in rehabilitation is whether invocation of multisensory integration could increase training efficacy. To investigate, participants completed a 10-day training experiment wherein they repeatedly performed a 4-way global motion direction discrimination task. On each trial, participants were presented with a 5{degrees} diameter visual global motion stimulus placed in a gaze-contingent manner at 10{degrees} azimuth/elevation. The visual-only group was presented the unimodal visual stimulus. However, for the auditory/visual (AV) group, the visual stimulus was paired with a pulsed white-noise auditory cue moving along in a direction consistent with the horizontal component of the visual motion stimulus. Direction range thresholds (DRT) were computed daily. The motion direction discrimination learning transferred fully in both groups, regardless of the presence of a feature-based attention cue. However, the figure-ground segregation learning only fully transferred to untrained locations with the addition of the feature-based attention cue. These results speak to the multiple levels of processing on which perceptual learning can operate. PACS0000, 1111 2000 MSC0000, 1111

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Optimizing parameters for using the parallel auditory brainstem response (pABR) to quickly estimate hearing thresholds

ObjectivesTimely assessments are critical to providing early intervention and better hearing and spoken language outcomes for children with hearing loss. To facilitate faster diagnostic hearing assessments in infants, the authors developed the parallel auditory brainstem response (pABR), which presents randomly timed trains of tone pips at five frequencies to each ear simultaneously. The pABR yields high-quality waveforms that are similar to the standard, single-frequency serial ABR but in a fraction of the recording time. While well-documented for standard ABRs, it is yet unknown how presentation rate and level interact to affect responses collected in parallel. Furthermore, the stimuli are yet to be calibrated to perceptual thresholds. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the optimal range of parameters for the pABR and to establish the normative stimulus level correction values for the ABR stimuli. DesignTwo experiments were completed, each with a group of 20 adults (18 - 35 years old) with normal hearing thresholds ([≤] 20 dB HL) from 250 to 8000 Hz. First, pABR electroencephalographic (EEG) responses were recorded for six stimulation rates and two intensities. The changes in component wave V amplitude and latency were analyzed, as well as the time required for all responses to reach a criterion signal-to-noise ratio of 0 dB. Second, behavioral thresholds were measured for pure tones and for the pABR stimuli at each rate to determine the correction factors that relate the stimulus level in dB peSPL to perceptual thresholds in dB nHL. ResultsThe pABR showed some adaptation with increased stimulation rate. A wide range of rates yielded robust responses in under 15 minutes, but 40 Hz was the optimal singular presentation rate. Extending the analysis window to include later components of the response offered further time-saving advantages for the temporally broader responses to low frequency tone pips. The perceptual thresholds to pABR stimuli changed subtly with rate, giving a relatively similar set of correction factors to convert the level of the pABR stimuli from dB peSPL to dB nHL. ConclusionsThe optimal stimulation rate for the pABR is 40 Hz, but using multiple rates may prove useful. Perceptual thresholds that subtly change across rate allow for a testing paradigm that easily transitions between rates, which may be useful for quickly estimating thresholds for different configurations of hearing loss. These optimized parameters facilitate expediency and effectiveness of the pABR to estimate hearing thresholds in a clinical setting. HighlightsO_LIThe pABR yields robust responses across stimulus rates and intensities. C_LIO_LIThe optimal rate is 40 Hz, but using multiple rates may prove useful. C_LIO_LIThe pABR shows some adaptation with increased stimulation rate. C_LIO_LIExtended analysis windows improve response detection for low stimulus frequencies. C_LIO_LIBehavioral thresholds subtly change across pABR rate, giving similar dB nHL values. C_LI

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Exposing distinct subcortical components of the auditory brainstem response evoked by continuous naturalistic speech

Speech processing is built upon encoding by the auditory nerve and brainstem, yet we know very little about how these processes unfold in specific subcortical structures. These structures are deep and respond quickly, making them difficult to study during ongoing speech. Recent techniques begin to address this problem, but yield temporally broad responses with consequently ambiguous neural origins. Here we describe a method that pairs re-synthesized "peaky" speech with deconvolution analysis of EEG recordings. We show that in adults with normal hearing, the method quickly yields robust responses whose component waves reflect activity from distinct subcortical structures spanning auditory nerve to rostral brainstem. We further demonstrate the versatility of peaky speech by simultaneously measuring bilateral and ear-specific responses across different frequency bands, and discuss important practical considerations such as talker choice. The peaky speech method holds promise as a tool for investigating speech encoding and processing, and for clinical applications.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

The parallel auditory brainstem response

The frequency-specific tone-evoked auditory brainstem response (ABR) is an indispensable tool in both the audiology clinic and research laboratory. Most frequently the toneburst ABR is used to estimate hearing thresholds in infants, toddlers and other patients for whom behavioral testing is not feasible. Therefore, results of the ABR exam form the basis for decisions regarding interventions and hearing habilitation with implications extending far into the childs future. Currently, responses are elicited by periodic sequences of toneburst stimuli presented serially to one ear at a time, which take a long time to measure multiple frequencies and intensities, and provide incomplete information if the infant wakes up early. Here we describe a new method, the parallel ABR (pABR), which uses randomly timed toneburst stimuli to simultaneously acquire ABR waveforms to 5 frequencies in both ears. Here we describe the pABR and quantify its effectiveness in addressing the greatest drawback of current methods: test duration. We show that in adults with normal hearing the pABR yields high-quality waveforms over a range of intensities, with similar morphology to the standard ABR in a fraction of the recording time. Furthermore, longer latencies and smaller amplitudes for low frequencies at a high intensity evoked by the pABR versus serial ABR suggest that responses may have better place specificity due to the masking provided by the other simultaneous toneburst sequences. Thus, the pABR has substantial potential for facilitating faster accumulation of more diagnostic information that is important for timely identification and treatment of hearing loss.

neuroscience↗