Sources of frequency following responses (FFR) in man

Abstract

In order to study the sources and pathways which are responsible for the frequency following response (FFR), records were made in control subjects and in patients with special types of lesion and response. It has already been shown that the FFR in normal subjects to tone bursts with single onset phases is made up of a short latency cochlear microphonic potential (CM) and a longer latency neural component (neural FFR). No neural FFR could be recorded in patients with upper brain-stem lesions (absence of click-evoked responses from the inferior colliculus along with clinical signs of such a lesion). Their FFR was exclusively a cochlear microphonic potential, thus demonstrating that the neural FFR with a latency of 6 msec is generated in the region of the inferior colliculus. Also in subjects with large post-auricular muscle (PAM) responses, the PAM can contribute to the FFR, with a latency of 10 msec. In patients with high-tone hearing loss due to acoustic trauma, no CM could be recorded while a neural FFR with a latency of 6 msec was present. This indicates that the CM recorded by this technique may be generated in the basal turn. It also demonstrates that the pathway of the neural FFR begins in the apical turn of the cochlea.