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. 2025 Jan 22;20(1):e0317661.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0317661. eCollection 2025.

Effects of stimuli and contralateral noise levels on auditory cortical potentials recorded in school-age children

Thalita Ubiali  1 , Camila Colussi Madruga-Rimoli  1 , Thais Antonelli Diniz-Hein  1 , Milaine Dominici Sanfins  2   3   4 , Bruno Sanches Masiero  5 , Maria Francisca Colella-Santos  1
Affiliations

Effects of stimuli and contralateral noise levels on auditory cortical potentials recorded in school-age children

Thalita Ubiali et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background and objective: One of the functions attributed to the auditory efferent system is related to the processing of acoustic stimuli in noise backgrounds. However, clinical implications and the neurophysiological mechanisms of this system are not yet understood, especially on higher regions of the central nervous system. Only a few researchers studied the effects of noise on cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEP), but the lack of studies in this area and the contradictory results, especially in children, point to the need to investigate different protocols and parameters that could allow the study of top-down activity in humans. For this reason, the aim of this study was to analyze the effect of varying levels of contralateral noise on efferent activity in children by recording CAEPs with tone burst stimuli. Additionally, we aimed at verifying the effects of contralateral noise on cortical processing of speech stimuli.

Methods: Monaural CAEPs were recorded using tone burst stimuli in quiet and with contralateral white noise at 60 dB and at 70 dB in 65 typically developing school-aged children (experiment 1), and using speech stimuli with contralateral white noise at 60 dB in 41 children (experiment 2).

Results: In experiment 1, noise induced changes were observed only for P1 and P300 components. P1 latency was prolonged at both noise level conditions, P300 latency was prolonged only in the condition with noise at 70 dB, and P300 amplitude was reduced only in the condition with noise at 60 dB. In experiment 2, noise induced latency delays were observed on P1, P2, N2, and P300 components and amplitude reduction was observed only for N1.

Conclusion: The effects of noise stimulation were observed on all CAEP components elicited by speech, but the same was not observed in the experiment with tone bursts. The study of noise effects on CAEPs can provide electrophysiological evidence on how difficult listening situations affect sound discrimination and stimulus evaluation at thalamocortical regions.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Example of CAEP analysis.
P1-N1-P2-N2 complex was marked on the trace corresponding to standard stimuli and P300 (P3b) was marked on the trace corresponding to target stimuli. Waveforms were obtained from one subject of the sample (female, 10 years old). Blue waveforms correspond to the left year and red waveforms to the right ear.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Error bars showing the means and standard errors for the latencies (ms) and amplitudes (μV) of CAEPs obtained with tone burst stimuli in the conditions quiet (in blue), noise 60 dB (in red), and noise 70 dB (in yellow).
Dots indicate the mean and error bars indicate the margin of 1 standard deviation around the mean.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Grand average waveforms for responses to tone burst stimuli in quiet (blue line), in competing contralateral noise at 60 dB (red line), and in competing contralateral noise at 70 dB (yellow line).
Fig 4
Fig 4. Grand average waveforms by age for responses to tone burst stimuli in quiet (blue line), in competing contralateral noise at 60 dB (red line), and in competing contralateral noise at 70 dB (yellow line).
Fig 5
Fig 5. Error bars showing the means and standard errors for the latencies (ms) and amplitudes (μV) of CAEPs obtained with speech stimuli in the conditions quiet (in blue) and noise 60 dB (in red).
Dots indicate the mean and error bars indicate the margin of 1 standard deviation around the mean.
Fig 6
Fig 6. Grand average waveforms for responses to speech stimuli in quiet (blue line) and in competing contralateral noise at 60 dB (red line).
Fig 7
Fig 7. Grand average waveforms by age for responses to speech stimuli in quiet (blue line) and in competing contralateral noise at 60 dB (red line).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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