Auditory steady-state responses reveal amplitude modulation gap detection thresholds

Abstract

Auditory evoked magnetic fields were recorded from the left hemisphere of healthy subjects using a 37-channel magnetometer while stimulating the right ear with 40-Hz amplitude modulated (AM) tone-bursts with 500-Hz carrier frequency in order to study the time-courses of amplitude and phase of auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs). The stimulus duration of 300 ms and the duration of the silent periods (3-300 ms) between succeeding stimuli were chosen to address the question whether the time-course of the ASSR can reflect both temporal integration and temporal resolution in the central auditory processing. Long lasting perturbations of the ASSR were found after gaps in the AM sound, even for gaps of short duration. These were interpreted as evidences for an auditory reset mechanism. Concomitant psycho-acoustical tests corroborated that gap durations perturbing the ASSR were in the same range as the threshold for AM gap detection. Magnetic source localizations estimated the ASSR sources in the primary auditory cortex, suggesting that the processing of temporal structures in the sound is performed at or below the cortical level.