Date of Graduation

Spring 2008

Degree

Doctor of Audiology

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Committee Chair

Thomas Franklin

Abstract

Auditory Evoked Potentials (AEPs) have been utilized as an objective measure to determine hearing sensitivity and integrity of the auditory neural pathways. The N1, P2, N2, and P3 are AEPs that require the subject to attend to the auditory stimulus, and can therefore deteriorate if attention and focus are compromised. Previous studies have suggested that the P3 amplitude and latency responses are negatively affected by sleep deprivation. There has been little research investigating whether a brief recovery period can restore amplitude and latency to baseline values. This study recorded the N1, P2, N2, and P3 responses from 28 healthy undergraduate students ranging in age from 20 to 25 years. The AEP responses were recorded for three conditions: baseline, after at least 24 hours of sleep deprivation, and following a 30- or 90- minute recovery period. The study utilized a stimulus set that is easy to discriminate, a standard tone of 75ms and a target tone of 25ms. Each response was replicated to ensure validity. Results reported amplitude and latency changes in the following AEPs: N1, P2, N2, and P3. Unlike previous research, T-Tests revealed a significant increase in N2 amplitude following sleep deprivation. As expected, latencies increased for N2 and P3 following at least 24 hours of sleep deprivation. A randomly assigned recovery period of 30- or 90- minutes was not sufficient to return the sleep-deprived amplitudes and latencies to baseline values.

Keywords

auditory event-related potential, auditory late response, sleep-deprivation, evoked potentials, duration contrast

Subject Categories

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Copyright

© Beth Ann Mayes

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