Rapid-FFR: Developing a rapid method of measuring the auditory frequency following response for use in children and infants

Rapid-FFR：开发一种快速测量儿童和婴儿响应后听觉频率的方法

• 批准号: 2414122
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2414122
• 关键词: Rapid; FFR; Developing; rapid; method

The most commonly used electrophysiological measure in the audiological clinic is that of the click-evoked Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR). Used widely in newborn hearing screening programmes, it has the advantage of taking only 2-3 minutes to measure (once the electrodes are placed), an important consideration when testing infants and children. Although of great utility, the information one can gain in a short time from such a simple stimulus is limited, and click-evoked ABRs have mostly been used to detect hearing loss.Recently, there been a growing interest in another auditory response, the so-called frequency following response (FFR). The FFR is a scalp-recorded electrophysiological measure which reflects sustained synchronous neural firing in response to periodic auditory stimuli along the auditory pathway. Recent evidence suggests that by varying the fundamental frequency (F0) of the stimuli, it is possible to favour neural generators at different levels of the auditory pathway, with relatively low frequency F0s leading to more cortical contributions, and higher frequency ones weighting lower level brainstem contributions. Also, with such a technique, evoking sounds can be much more acoustically complex than clicks, even including speech sounds. Because of the wider variety of acoustic attributes that can be explored, it is possible to target various speech-related features more specifically than is possible with a relatively crude click ABR. Most importantly, both human and animal studies show that the FFR and ABR measure complementary aspects of neurophysiological functioning, relating to behaviour differently, as well as in reflecting different neural populations. In short, FFRs could be a useful tool to use in auditory diagnoses in infants and children, and might allow the probing of different stages in the auditory pathway.One important aspect of measuring FFRs that impedes their adoption in the clinic is the time it takes to measure them. FFRs are typically recorded to discrete silence-separated stimuli with a duration of 40 - 150 ms and sometimes up to as much as 2 s. Collecting a robust FFR can take up to 30 minutes as it requires approximately 2000-3000 repetitions of the stimulus, and it is often considered desirable to record both positive and negative polarities of the signal. Such measures are onerous enough in adult participants. For infants and children, the time required for FFRs poses an important obstacle to their more general use.We have been developing a new method for measuring FFRs, in which the stimulus is presented continuously (i.e., without an interstimulus interval) and averaging across a single cycle of the response. For the particular stimulus we used, FFR recording times were reduced from approximately 2.5 minutes for the standard technique to only 35 seconds using our new one (Rapid-FFR), with comparable data quality. This reduction in acquisition time means that that it becomes easier to test a larger number of conditions within one session and to test participants who have difficulty remaining still for a long time. In this project, we propose to investigate more fully the use of this technique in adults, varying, for example, the F0 of the stimuli, as well as the acoustic features present, with a particular emphasis on features crucial in speech perception. Secondly, we plan to apply it in children and infants, with a view towards making the technique viable for measurements of the FFR to be included in audiological test batteries.

听觉诊所中最常用的电生理学指标是单击诱发的听觉脑干反应（ABR）。它在新生儿听力筛查计划中广泛使用，它的优点仅需2-3分钟即可测量（一旦放置电极），这是对婴儿和儿童进行测试时的重要考虑因素。尽管具有很大的效用，但人们可以在短时间内从这种简单的刺激中获得的信息受到限制，并且单击诱发的ABR大多用于检测听力损失。实际上，对另一种听觉响应（响应后的所谓频率）越来越感兴趣（FFR）。 FFR是一种头皮录制的电生理措施，它反映了沿听觉途径的周期性听觉刺激响应持续的同步神经发射。最近的证据表明，通过改变刺激的基本频率（F0），有可能在不同水平的听觉途径上偏爱神经发电机，其频率F0相对较低，导致更高的皮质贡献，并且较高的频率为较低的脑干贡献。同样，通过这样的技术，唤起的声音在声学上可能比单击更复杂，甚至包括语音。由于可以探索的各种声学属性更广泛，因此可以使用相对粗略的单击ABR来更具体地针对各种语音相关的功能。最重要的是，人类和动物研究都表明，FFR和ABR测量了神经生理功能的互补方面，与行为以及反映不同的神经种群有关。简而言之，FFR可能是在婴儿和儿童的听觉诊断中使用的有用工具，并且可能允许在听觉途径中进行不同阶段的探测。测量FFR的重要方面阻碍了他们在诊所中采用的FFR是衡量他们的时间。 FFR通常记录为离散的沉默分离刺激，持续时间为40-150 ms，有时长达2 s。收集强大的FFR最多可能需要30分钟，因为它需要大约2000-3000个刺激重复，并且通常认为可以记录信号的正极和负极性。在成年参与者中，这种措施足够繁重。对于婴儿和儿童，FFRS所需的时间构成了更普遍的用途的重要障碍。我们一直在开发一种测量FFR的新方法，在该方法中，刺激持续出现（即，没有刺激间隔），并且在响应的单个响应周期中平均。对于我们使用的特定刺激，将FFR记录时间从标准技术的大约2.5分钟减少到使用我们的新的（快速FFR）的35秒，具有可比的数据质量。减少收购时间的减少意味着在一个会话中测试大量条件并测试很长一段时间静止的参与者变得更加容易。在这个项目中，我们建议更全面地研究该技术在成年人中的使用，例如，刺激的F0以及存在的声学特征，并特别强调了语音感知至关重要的特征。其次，我们计划将其应用于儿童和婴儿中，以使该技术可用于测量FFR，以包括在听力学测试电池中。