Evoked Potential: Audition

Auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) represent synchronous neural activity in the brain in response to a sound changing—for example, in frequency or level—and that can be recorded from electrodes attached to the scalp. AEPs can be used to detect hearing loss in newborns and infants; they are exquisitely sensitive at the millisecond (ms) level to changes in conduction time in axons and temporal processing in neurons. This high time resolution allows the tracking of maturational changes in the brain, the documentation of short-term auditory learning, and the diagnosis of disorders related to temporal processing in general.

AEPs comprise activity from neural generators in the auditory nerve, the fiber tracts in the brain stem, and the pyramidal cells in the auditory cortex. Table 1 provides an overview of ...