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. 2014 Oct 13:5:142.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2014.00142. eCollection 2014.

The auditory brain-stem response to complex sounds: a potential biomarker for guiding treatment of psychosis

Melissa A Tarasenko  1 , Neal R Swerdlow  2 , Scott Makeig  3 , David L Braff  1 , Gregory A Light  1
Affiliations

The auditory brain-stem response to complex sounds: a potential biomarker for guiding treatment of psychosis

Melissa A Tarasenko et al. Front Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Cognitive deficits limit psychosocial functioning in schizophrenia. For many patients, cognitive remediation approaches have yielded encouraging results. Nevertheless, therapeutic response is variable, and outcome studies consistently identify individuals who respond minimally to these interventions. Biomarkers that can assist in identifying patients likely to benefit from particular forms of cognitive remediation are needed. Here, we describe an event-related potential (ERP) biomarker - the auditory brain-stem response (ABR) to complex sounds (cABR) - that appears to be particularly well-suited for predicting response to at least one form of cognitive remediation that targets auditory information processing. Uniquely, the cABR quantifies the fidelity of sound encoded at the level of the brainstem and midbrain. This ERP biomarker has revealed auditory processing abnormalities in various neurodevelopmental disorders, correlates with functioning across several cognitive domains, and appears to be responsive to targeted auditory training. We present preliminary cABR data from 18 schizophrenia patients and propose further investigation of this biomarker for predicting and tracking response to cognitive interventions.

Keywords: EEG; auditory brain-stem response; biomarkers; cognitive remediation; complex auditory brain-stem response; psychosis; schizophrenia.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Grand average cABR from 18 schizophrenia patients. Black line is average cABR from Cz; peaks are named in accordance with convention [e.g. (27)]. Blue line represents “da” stimulus sound wave, 200 Hz low-pass filtered to better illustrate similarities between cABR and stimulus. Sound wave has also been shifted forward approximately six milliseconds to account for transmission time from cochlea to brainstem. Peaks V–A, C, and O are transient features of the cABR, corresponding with stop consonant onset, consonant-vowel formant transition, and offset of voicing, respectively. Peaks D, E, and F comprise the sustained frequency-following response (FFR) of the vowel sound (Tarasenko et al., in preparation).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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