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Central auditory detection and pre-attentive discrimination in children

Liasis, Alkiviades; (2000) Central auditory detection and pre-attentive discrimination in children. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London). Green open access

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Abstract

Central auditory processes to detection and pre-attentive discrimination in children were studied using auditory event related potentials (AERP). Discrimination potentials were elicited by infrequent deviant stimuli embedded pseudo-randomly in a sequence of frequent standard stimuli. The major obligatory components of the AERP, P85-120, N1 and N2 were recorded to stimuli that varied in complexity (pure tones to words). A later component evoked by deviant stimuli, termed the mismatch negativity (MMN), thought to reflect pre-attentive auditory discrimination processes that occur within the duration of echoic memory, was also noticed.Five groups of children were studied. 1. Experiments in normal adult and children controls were carried out to validate the methodology. MMN to duration and frequency deviance was dissociated temporally but not spatially. 2. Intracranial recordings revealed cortical activation in the peri-sylvian and frontal regions that was dependent on the complexity and context of the stimuli. 3. Scalp recordings in children who had undergone hemispherectomy provided a model of the scalp distribution of AERPs arising from one hemisphere and a comparison to the intracranial recordings. Significant differences in AERP components to pure tones and syllables suggested optimal processing by the intact left hemisphere. 4. Recordings in awake children with benign rolandic epilepsy show an alteration in the topography of the P85-120 component of the AERP contralateral to the hemisphere generating spikes during sleep. As there is no structural lesion these findings suggest long term effects of epileptic spikes. 5. In a previously poorly described group of children with normal peripheral hearing who have difficulties in challenging acoustic environments, the AERPs were sensitive to deficits in a behavioural test of central auditory processing. Other findings included the increase in latencies of AERP components with more complex stimuli and differing morphology/topography of the obligatory and mismatch components both to each other and between adults and children.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: Ph.D
Title: Central auditory detection and pre-attentive discrimination in children
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
Additional information: Thesis digitised by ProQuest.
Keywords: Health and environmental sciences; Auditory processing
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10098101
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