Comparison of Binaural Interaction Component (BIC) in Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Hearing Loss: Pilot Study

Background and Objective: Binaural interaction component has been seen to be effective in assessing the binaural interaction process in normal hearing individuals. However, there is a lack of literature regarding the effects of SNHL on the Binaural Interaction Component of ABR. Hence, it is necessary to study binaural interaction occurs at the brainstem when there is an associated hearing impairment. Methods: Three groups of participants in the age range of 30 to 55 years were taken for study i.e. one control group and two experimental groups (symmetrical and asymmetrical hearing loss). The binaural interaction component was determined by subtracting the binaurally evoked auditory potentials from the sum of the monaural auditory evoked potentials: BIC= [{left monaural + right monaural)-binaural}. The latency and amplitude of V peak was estimated for click evoked ABR for monaural and binaural recordings. Results: One way ANOVA revealed a significant difference for binaural interaction component in terms of latency between different groups. One-way ANOVA also showed no significant difference seen between the three different groups in terms of amplitude. Conclusion: The binaural interaction component of auditory brainstem response can be used to evaluate the binaural interaction in symmetrical and asymmetrical hearing loss. This will be helpful to circumvent the effect of peripheral hearing loss in binaural processing of the auditory system. Additionally the test does not require any behavioral cooperation from the client, hence can be administered easily.