ABSTRACTAuditory brainstem response (ABR) is widely employed to evaluate the hearing function, both in clinics and basic research. Despite many attempts for automation over decades, reliable determination of threshold stimulus level still relies on human visual identification of waveform, which oftentimes is subjective. Here, we report a robust procedure for automatic and accurate threshold determination in both mouse and human ABR. Contrary to prior approaches, in our new threshold determination algorithm, the on-going averaging is stopped once the waveform is confirmed by a cross-correlation time shift approach. The flexible ending sweep numbers for different stimuli is used to inform the threshold determination. We found a good match of the threshold readings between the algorithm and the human judges. Moreover, in the algorithm, smaller sweep number is required for strong response from supra-threshold level, and thus a considerable portion of sweeps can be saved in comparison to the case with level averaging of a fix number. These features are attractive and implementation of this method in commercial devices will make the ABR test procedure more objective and efficient.
Real-time Threshold Determination of Auditory Brainstem Responses by Cross-correlation Analysis
