Search results for "Audit"
showing 10 items of 1421 documents
Assessing audiological, pathophysiological and psychological variables in tinnitus patients with or without hearing loss
2010
The aim of this work is to study the characteristics of tinnitus both in normal hearing subjects and in patients with hearing loss. The study considered tinnitus sufferers, ranging from 21 to 83 years of age, who were referred to the Audiology Section of Palermo University in the years 2006–2008. The following parameters were considered: age, sex, hearing threshold, tinnitus laterality, tinnitus duration, tinnitus measurements and subjective disturbance caused by tinnitus. The sample was divided into Group1 (G1), 115 subjects with normal hearing, and Group2 (G2), 197 subjects with hearing loss. Especially for G2, there was a predominance of males compared to females (P = 0.011); the highest…
Increased cortisol and decreased right ear advantage (REA) in dichotic listening following a negative mood induction.
2005
This study aimed to evaluate neuroendocrine responses and changes in perceptual asymmetry following an induced negative affect. Cortisol increasing in response to negative affect has been reported, while current brain models of emotion processing link negative affect to the right hemisphere. In this study, the Velten Mood Induction Procedure was used to generate neutral or negative affect in 44 healthy subjects. The PANAS scales were used to assess self-reported mood. A consonant-vowel dichotic listening (DL) test was applied after the neutral and negative affect inductions, and levels of salivary cortisol were determined by radioimmunoassay. For the negative affect condition, and congruent…
Distraction of task-relevant information processing by irrelevant changes in auditory, visual, and bimodal stimulus features: A behavioral and event-…
2009
Distractibility with auditory, visual, and bimodal stimulus changes was investigated using an audio-visual distraction paradigm. Participants were asked to discriminate between equiprobable short and long audio-visual stimuli. Infrequently, the auditory, the visual, or both parts of the stimuli changed. These rare deviations (deviants) were irrelevant for the actual task. The influence of the three types of deviant stimuli on the processing of task-relevant information was assessed with behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures assuming that bimodal deviants would lead to an increase in distraction. Behavioral and ERP results did not support this assumption, as reaction time (RT…
Perinatal cerebral insults alter auditory event-related potentials.
2011
Background: Auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) can be used as indices of neural information processing. Altered AERPs have been reported in children and young adults with frontal lobe infarction. Aim: To test the hypothesis that perinatal brain injury affects cortical auditory processing. Methods: We assessed AERPs at term. 6 and 12 months of age in preterm infants [n = 9. median gestational age (GA) 27.9, range 23.9-30.0 wk], term infants with perinatal intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) [n = 5, GA 40.3, range 37.4-42.3 wk], and term infants with perinatal asphyxia In [n = 4. GA 39.4. range 37.9-40.3 wk]. Healthy preterm (n = 16) and term infants (n = 22) served as controls. A harmonic …
Isolated cranial nerve palsies in multiple sclerosis
1997
During a 10 year period 24 patients with definite multiple sclerosis with isolated cranial nerve palsies were studied (third and fourth nerve: one patient each, sixth nerve: 12 patients, seventh nerve: three patients, eighth nerve: seven patients), in whom cranial nerve palsies were the presenting sign in 14 and the only clinical sign of an exacerbation in 10 patients. MRI was carried out in 20 patients and substantiated corresponding brainstem lesions in seven patients (third nerve: one patient, sixth nerve: four patients, eighth nerve: two patients). Additional abnormal findings of electro-oculography, or masseter reflex, or blink reflex, or combinations of these were found in 20 patients…
The location by early auditory evoked potentials (EAEP) of acoustic nerve and brainstem demyelination in multiple sclerosis (MS).
1980
Tone pips of suprathreshold intensities elicit an acoustic nerve response (I) and six low amplitude brainstem potentials (II-VII) during the initial 10 ms. Seven waves were studied in 40 control subjects and 5 waves (I-V) in 47 patients with MS. The results suggest involvement of the auditory pathway of 24 of 27 patients in the clinically "definite", of 5 of 9 cases in the "probable" and in none of 5 patients in the "possible" MS groups. EAEPs were normal in 6 cases with a spinal form with one exception where changes of potential were indicative of a midbrain lesion. Dysfunction within the acoustic pathway was observed at the level of the acoustic nerve and in the medulla oblongata, pons an…
Different interference effects in musicians and a control group.
2006
In the present study musicians and normal control subjects performed an S1-S2 pitch comparison task, which included the presentation of intervening tones during the retention interval. The time for encoding and storing the pitch of S1 was varied between 200 and 1,500 ms by changing the pause between the S1 offset and the onset of the intervening tones. Although musicians outperformed the control group with longer pauses after the S1 offset, this advantage was relatively small with shorter pauses. These results suggest that the advantage of musicians in storing auditory information is not solely due to their superior encoding of information but also to improved working memory operations.
Electrophysiological brainstem testing in the diagnosis of reversible brainstem ischemia.
2002
The aim of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity of multimodal electrophysiological brainstem testing in the diagnosis of clinically suspected reversible ischemic deficits of the brainstem compared with diffusion weighted MR imaging. We investigated 158 consecutive patients presenting with signs of acute brainstem dysfunction. Serial electrophysiological brainstem tests including masseter reflex, blink reflex, masseter inhibitory reflex, AEP, MEP, EOG and the oculoauricular phenomenon were applied. In 14 of the 158 patients neurological deficits resolved in less than 24 hours, which was suggestive of a transitory ischemic attack (TIA), 19 patients had brainstem signs for more than 24 h…
Pontine lesions mimicking acute peripheral vestibulopathy
1999
OBJECTIVES Clinical signs of acute peripheral vestibulopathy (APV) were repeatedly reported with pontine lesions. The clinical relevance of such a mechanism is not known, as most studies were biased by patients with additional clinical signs of brainstem dysfunction. METHODS Masseter reflex (MassR), blink reflex (BlinkR), brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs), and DC electro-oculography (EOG) were tested in 232 consecutive patients with clinical signs of unilateral APV. RESULTS Forty five of the 232 patients (19.4%) had at least one electrophysiological abnormality suggesting pontine dysfunction mainly due to possible vertebrobasilar ischaemia (22 patients) and multiple sclerosis (ei…
Brain lateralization of metrical accenting in musicians.
2009
The perception of meter, or the alternation of strong and weak beats, was assessed in musically trained listeners through magnetoencephalography. Metrical accents were examined with no temporal disruption of the serial grouping of tones. Results showed an effect of metrical processing among identical standard tones in the left hemisphere, with larger responses on strong than on weak beats. Moreover, processing of occasional increases in intensity (phenomenal accents) varied as a function of metrical position in the left hemisphere, but not in the right. Our findings support the view of a relatively early, left-hemispheric effect of metrical processing in musicians.