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Biomedical subjects

D E Morgan

Publications and source records attributed to D E Morgan.

69 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

The influence of middle-ear muscle contraction on auditory threshold for selected pure tones.

The influence of middle-ear muscle (MEM) contraction on auditory threshold has been measured for pure tones of 0.25, 0.5, and 1.5 kHz. The reflex-activating signal was a 3-kHz pure tone. Signal paradigms were chosen to reduce or eliminate the effects of binaural loudness summation, contralateral direct masking, and contralateral remote and backward masking effects, and to maximize the influence of MEM contraction. Results indicate that under no condition was behavioral threshold affected by the MEM contraction induced using a pure-tone stimulus of 3 kHz, 105 dB SPL.

Adult↗

Nonacoustic stimulation of the middle ear muscle reflex.

The purpose of these experiments was to determine the incidence of the middle ear reflex in response to several nonacoustic (tactile and air jet) stimuli among subjects with normal hearing who had an acoustic reflex and selected patients with severe hearing loss. The results demonstrate that the incidence of response to tactile stimulation increases as the facial area stimulated approaches the auricle. The response to an air jet stimulus directed toward the eye is high; however, the clinical utility of the air jet may be limited because it often results in a startle reaction and head movement, and the response appears to fatigue easily. In normal listeners the response to auricular air jet stimulation probably results from both acoustic and tactile stimulation. The presence of a reflex to tactile stimulation, together with normal tympanometry constitutes strong evidence of a normal middle ear; but the absence of a reflex to acoustic or tactile stimuli still leads to an ambiguous determination of potential stapedial muscle function.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Auditory brain stem evoked response characteristics in the full-term newborn infant.

The auditory brain stem response to click stimuli was investigated in a group of 50 full-term healthy newborns, as well as in a group of 20 older children and adults. The stimulus parameters of click level and click repetition rate were varied systematically to quantify the characteristics of the auditory brain stem response in the full-term newborn infant. The results reveal increased latencies for waves I, III, and V for all conditions among the newborns, relative to the older age group. The results suggest that the neurological system is the primary source of differences between newborns and older subjects, but do not rule out the possibility that external ear, middle ear, or cochlear mechanisms may also contribute to the differences observed.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Auditory brain stem evoked response characteristics in developing infants.

The auditory brain stem response (ABR) of a single group of developing normal infants was examined longitudinally, from newborn through 6 months of age. A sufficiently broad range of stimulus variables was included to ensure that the auditory system was adequately sampled in order to demonstrate developmental principles. Findings indicate that there are no differences in wave V latency-intensity functions between infants and adults. For waves I, III, and V, absolute and interwave latency-repetition rate functions differ between infants and adults and undergo systematic changes throughout the first 6 months of life. The most dramatic ABR changes (between any two sequential test sessions in infants) occurred between the ages of newborn and 2 weeks, with less pronounced ABR changes beyond 2 weeks of age. The pattern of latency change for wave I was different from that for waves III and V. After 2 weeks of age, wave I latency was the same as the adult value at all repetition rates. In contrast, waves III and V were characterized by decreasing latency throughout the follow-up period. A curvilinear developmental model provided a satisfactory fit to ABR latency data.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Evaluation of the speech perception in noise (SPIN) test.

Several investigations were perfomed with normal hearing subjects to determine the effects of presentation level and signal-to-babble ratio on the speech perception in noise (SPIN) test. The SPIN test contains sentences that simulate a range of contextual situations encountered in everyday speech communication. Findings from several representative patients with sensorineural hearing loss demonstrate the possible clinical utility of the test to measure the effects of context on speech discrimination.

Acoustic Stimulation↗