Background

The frequency-following response, or FFR, is a neurophysiologic response that captures distinct aspects of sound processing. Like all evoked responses, FFR is susceptible to electric and myogenic noise contamination during collection. Click-evoked auditory brainstem response collection standards have been adopted for FFR collection, however, whether these standards sufficiently limit FFR noise contamination is unknown. Thus, a critical question remains: to what extent do distinct FFR components reflect noise contamination? This is especially relevant for prestimulus amplitude (i.e., activity preceding the evoked response), as this measure has been used to index both noise contamination and neural noise.

New method

We performed two experiments. First, using >1000 young-adult FFRs, we ran regressions to determine the variance explained by myogenic and electrical noise, as indexed by artifact rejection count and electrode impedance, on each FFR component. Second, we reanalyzed prestimulus amplitude differences attributed to athletic experience and socioeconomic status, adding covariates of artifact rejection and impedance.

Results

We found that non-neural noise marginally contributed to FFR components and could not explain group differences on prestimulus amplitude.

Comparison with existing method

Prestimulus amplitude has been considered a measure of non-neural noise contamination. However, non-neural noise was not the sole contributor to variance in this measure and did not explain group differences.

Conclusions

Results from the two experiments suggest that the effects of non-neural noise on FFR components are minimal and do not obscure individual differences in the FFR and that prestimulus amplitude indexes neural noise.

中文翻译：

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非刺激诱发活动作为频率跟随反应中神经噪声的量度

背景

频率跟随响应或 FFR 是一种神经生理学响应，可捕捉声音处理的不同方面。像所有诱发反应一样，FFR 在收集过程中容易受到电和肌源性噪声污染。FFR 采集已采用点击诱发听觉脑干反应采集标准，但这些标准是否足以限制 FFR 噪声污染尚不清楚。因此，一个关键问题仍然存在：不同的 FFR 组件在多大程度上反映了噪声污染？这与刺激前幅度（即诱发反应之前的活动）特别相关，因为该测量已用于索引噪声污染和神经噪声。

新方法

我们做了两个实验。首先，使用 >1000 个年轻成人 FFR，我们进行回归以确定每个 FFR 组件上由肌源性和电噪声解释的方差，如伪影排斥计数和电极阻抗所索引。其次，我们重新分析了归因于运动经验和社会经济地位的刺激前幅度差异，增加了伪影排斥和阻抗的协变量。

结果

我们发现非神经噪声对 FFR 分量的贡献很小，并且无法解释刺激前幅度的组差异。

与现有方法的比较

刺激前幅度被认为是非神经噪声污染的量度。然而，非神经噪声并不是该测量中方差的唯一贡献者，也没有解释组差异。

结论

这两个实验的结果表明，非神经噪声对 FFR 分量的影响是最小的，并且不会掩盖 FFR 的个体差异，并且刺激前幅度指示神经噪声。