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Usefulness of phase gradients of otoacoustic emissions in auditory health screening: An exploration with swept tones

Otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) are low-level sounds generated by the cochlea and widely used as a noninvasive tool to inspect cochlear impairments. However, only the amplitude information of OAE signals is used in current clinical tests, while the OAE phase containing important information about cochl...

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Autores principales: Wang, Xin, Zhu, Mingxing, He, Yuchao, Liu, Zhenzhen, Huang, Xin, Pan, Hongguang, Wang, Mingjiang, Chen, Shixiong, Tao, Yuan, Li, Guanglin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9619081/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36325482
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.1018916
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author Wang, Xin
Zhu, Mingxing
He, Yuchao
Liu, Zhenzhen
Huang, Xin
Pan, Hongguang
Wang, Mingjiang
Chen, Shixiong
Tao, Yuan
Li, Guanglin
author_facet Wang, Xin
Zhu, Mingxing
He, Yuchao
Liu, Zhenzhen
Huang, Xin
Pan, Hongguang
Wang, Mingjiang
Chen, Shixiong
Tao, Yuan
Li, Guanglin
author_sort Wang, Xin
collection PubMed
description Otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) are low-level sounds generated by the cochlea and widely used as a noninvasive tool to inspect cochlear impairments. However, only the amplitude information of OAE signals is used in current clinical tests, while the OAE phase containing important information about cochlear functions is commonly discarded, due to the insufficient frequency-resolution of existing OAE tests. In this study, swept tones with time-varying frequencies were used to measure stimulus frequency OAEs (SFOAEs) in human subjects, so that high-resolution phase spectra that are not available in existing OAE tests could be obtained and analyzed. The results showed that the phase of swept-tone SFOAEs demonstrated steep gradients as the frequency increased in human subjects with normal hearing. The steep phase gradients were sensitive to auditory functional abnormality caused by cochlear damage and stimulus artifacts introduced by system distortions. At low stimulus levels, the group delays derived from the phase gradients decreased from around 8.5 to 3 ms as the frequency increased from 1 to 10 kHz for subjects with normal hearing, and the pattern of group-delay versus frequency function showed significant difference for subjects with hearing loss. By using the swept-tone technology, the study suggests that the OAE phase gradients could provide highly sensitive information about the cochlear functions and therefore should be integrated into the conventional methods to improve the reliability of auditory health screening.
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spelling pubmed-96190812022-11-01 Usefulness of phase gradients of otoacoustic emissions in auditory health screening: An exploration with swept tones Wang, Xin Zhu, Mingxing He, Yuchao Liu, Zhenzhen Huang, Xin Pan, Hongguang Wang, Mingjiang Chen, Shixiong Tao, Yuan Li, Guanglin Front Neurosci Neuroscience Otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) are low-level sounds generated by the cochlea and widely used as a noninvasive tool to inspect cochlear impairments. However, only the amplitude information of OAE signals is used in current clinical tests, while the OAE phase containing important information about cochlear functions is commonly discarded, due to the insufficient frequency-resolution of existing OAE tests. In this study, swept tones with time-varying frequencies were used to measure stimulus frequency OAEs (SFOAEs) in human subjects, so that high-resolution phase spectra that are not available in existing OAE tests could be obtained and analyzed. The results showed that the phase of swept-tone SFOAEs demonstrated steep gradients as the frequency increased in human subjects with normal hearing. The steep phase gradients were sensitive to auditory functional abnormality caused by cochlear damage and stimulus artifacts introduced by system distortions. At low stimulus levels, the group delays derived from the phase gradients decreased from around 8.5 to 3 ms as the frequency increased from 1 to 10 kHz for subjects with normal hearing, and the pattern of group-delay versus frequency function showed significant difference for subjects with hearing loss. By using the swept-tone technology, the study suggests that the OAE phase gradients could provide highly sensitive information about the cochlear functions and therefore should be integrated into the conventional methods to improve the reliability of auditory health screening. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-10-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9619081/ /pubmed/36325482 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.1018916 Text en Copyright © 2022 Wang, Zhu, He, Liu, Huang, Pan, Wang, Chen, Tao and Li. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Wang, Xin
Zhu, Mingxing
He, Yuchao
Liu, Zhenzhen
Huang, Xin
Pan, Hongguang
Wang, Mingjiang
Chen, Shixiong
Tao, Yuan
Li, Guanglin
Usefulness of phase gradients of otoacoustic emissions in auditory health screening: An exploration with swept tones
title Usefulness of phase gradients of otoacoustic emissions in auditory health screening: An exploration with swept tones
title_full Usefulness of phase gradients of otoacoustic emissions in auditory health screening: An exploration with swept tones
title_fullStr Usefulness of phase gradients of otoacoustic emissions in auditory health screening: An exploration with swept tones
title_full_unstemmed Usefulness of phase gradients of otoacoustic emissions in auditory health screening: An exploration with swept tones
title_short Usefulness of phase gradients of otoacoustic emissions in auditory health screening: An exploration with swept tones
title_sort usefulness of phase gradients of otoacoustic emissions in auditory health screening: an exploration with swept tones
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9619081/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36325482
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.1018916
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