Auditory pathway plasticity in adult humans after unilateral idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss

Abstract

We recorded auditory evoked magnetic fields from 8 patients with unilateral, idiopathic, sudden, sensorineural hearing loss and from 8 healthy controls, using a 122-channel whole-scalp neuromagnetometer. The stimuli were 50-ms 1-kHz tone bursts, delivered to the healthy ear at interstimulus intervals (ISIs) of 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 s. On average, as in normal-hearing controls, the dipole moments and the latencies of N100m, the 100-ms response, increased as a function of ISI over both hemispheres to left- and right-ear stimulation. Four patients had shorter response latencies and 4 had stronger dipole moments over the hemisphere ipsilateral to the stimulation. In 3 patients, one additional source was observed over the anterolateral right hemisphere and another near head midline. These findings suggest that unilateral sensorineural hearing loss may modify information processing in the central auditory pathways.