Analysis of auditory evoked potentials by magnitude-squared coherence.

Evoked potentials are usually analyzed in the time domain (voltage versus time). The most familiar frequency-domain measure, the power spectral density function, displays power as a function of frequency but doesn't distinguish signal power from noise power. The coherence function estimates, for each frequency, the ratio of signal power to total (signal plus noise) power and, thus, indicates the degree to which system output (scalp potential) is determined by input (acoustic stimulus). Coherence ranges from 0 to 1; values above specified critical values can be accepted as demonstrating statistically significant system response. In this paper, we present coherence analysis of human scalp responses to clicks and amplitude-modulated tones. In both cases, this analytic method provides insight into the spectral character of the response (for example, assisting in specifying desirable filter characteristics). Threshold sensitivity is also improved: statistically significant responses can be detected at lower intensity by coherence analysis than by inspection of time-domain waveforms.

[1]  J. Robert Boston,et al.  Spectra of Auditory Brainstem Responses and Spontaneous EEG , 1981, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[2]  J. Goldberg,et al.  Response of binaural neurons of dog superior olivary complex to dichotic tonal stimuli: some physiological mechanisms of sound localization. , 1969, Journal of neurophysiology.

[3]  E R John,et al.  Application of digital filtering and automatic peak detection to brain stem auditory evoked potential. , 1982, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[4]  J D Frost,et al.  Effect of sleep on the auditory steady state evoked potential. , 1986, Ear and hearing.

[5]  H. Hotelling.  The Generalization of Student’s Ratio , 1931 .

[6]  High-pass digital filtration of the 40 Hz response and its relationship to the spectral content of the middle latency and 40 Hz responses. , 1986, Ear and hearing.

[7]  B M Sayers,et al.  Pattern analysis of auditory-evoked EEG potentials. , 1979, Audiology : official organ of the International Society of Audiology.

[8]  Brian E. Maki,et al.  Interpretation of the Coherence Function When Using Pseudorandom Inputs to Identify Nonlinear Systems , 1986, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[9]  K. Mardia.  Statistics of Directional Data , 1972 .

[10]  Sumiyuki Koizumi.  ON THE HILBERT TRANSFORM I , 1959 .

[11]  T W Picton,et al.  Reliability estimates for steady-state evoked potentials. , 1987, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[12]  T W Picton,et al.  Potentials evoked by the sinusoidal modulation of the amplitude or frequency of a tone. , 1987, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[13]  Shigeyuki Kuwada,et al.  Scalp potentials of normal and hearing-impaired subjects in response to sinusoidally amplitude-modulated tones , 1986, Hearing Research.

[14]  D. E. Amos,et al.  TABLES OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE COEFFICIENT OF COHERENCE FOR STATIONARY BIVARIATE GAUSSIAN PROCESSES , 1963 .

[15]  Human short-latency auditory responses obtained by cross-correlation. , 1987, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[16]  V. Benignus.  Estimation of the coherence spectrum and its confidence interval using the fast Fourier transform , 1969 .

[17]  S Makeig,et al.  Auditory steady-state responses: threshold prediction using phase coherence. , 1987, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[18]  J. Bendat,et al.  Random Data: Analysis and Measurement Procedures , 1971 .

[19]  G. Carter,et al.  Estimation of the magnitude-squared coherence function via overlapped fast Fourier transform processing , 1973 .

[20]  C. E. Schreiner,et al.  The auditory neurophonic: Basic properties , 1984, Hearing Research.

[21]  Analysis of the frequency following response in the cat , 1984, Hearing Research.

[22]  C. Schreiner,et al.  Auditory neurophonic responses to amplitude-modulated tones: Transfer functions and forward masking , 1987, Hearing Research.

[23]  Barrie W. Jervis,et al.  A Fundamental Investigation of the Composition of Auditory Evoked Potentials , 1983, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[24]  S. Makeig,et al.  A 40-Hz auditory potential recorded from the human scalp. , 1981, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[25]  L Malis,et al.  Application of phase spectral analysis for brain stem auditory evoked potential detection in normal subjects and patients with posterior fossa tumors. , 1984, Audiology : official organ of the International Society of Audiology.

[26]  T. Suzuki,et al.  Power spectral analysis of auditory brain stem responses to pure tone stimuli. , 1982, Scandinavian audiology.