Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Auditory evoked response; Brain--Diseases--Diagnosis; Hearing disorders--Diagnosis;

Abstract

Dichotic listening involves the simultaneous presentation of stimuli binaurally and was initially a method for determining cerebral dominance or laterality of hemispheric function. Since its inception, dichotic listening has evolved into a method for assessing neurologic pathology. An interruption in the central auditory pathways will result in a detectable asymmetry of dichotic scores. Impaired dichotic listening has been well documented in numerous neurological etiologies, but dichotic listening in patients who present anterior communicating artery (ACoA) aneurysm has yet to be documented. Due to the location of the ACoA and the substrates of innervation, central auditory pathways responsible for the transmission of dichotic stimuli should not be impaired. However, due to common neurological sequelae following brain injury such as cerebral ischemia, cerebral edema, or behavioral dysfunctions as a result of the injury or of an iatrogenic etiology, central auditory pathways may suppress the transmission of auditory stimuli. The participants were divided into two groups of pairs: patients who presented anterior communicating artery (ACoA) aneurysm with age-matched control subjects, and patients who presented moderate to severe brain injury with age-matched control subjects. Each subject was assessed with the Dichotic Word Listening Test (DWLT). Data from this previously assessed patient population was collected retrospectively from medical records at Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo, Iowa. Control subjects with no history of neurologic pathology were selected in order to match age and gender characteristics of the ACoA group and the brain injury group. The results revealed a similar pattern for both the patients with ACoA aneurysm and those with moderate-severe brain injury with regard to deficits in dichotic listening. Four of five patients that presented ACoA aneurysm failed the DWLT. These results were similar to those of the patients who presented moderate-severe brain injury (n = 5). In that population, four of the five failed the DWLT. All of the age-matched normals (n = 10) passed the DWLT. Due to the similarities of impairments in dichotic listening exhibited by patients that presented ACoA aneurysm versus moderate-severe brain injury, it is possible that a focal cerebral injury, such as an aneurysm, may result in sequelae similar to an injury with more of a diffuse nature. The findings suggest that the central auditory pathways are succeptible to damage following an ACoA aneurysm, an artery more commonly associated with deficits in vision, memory, and behavior following insult.

Year of Submission

2000

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Communicative Disorders

First Advisor

Lauren L. Nelson

Second Advisor

Richard A. McGuire

Third Advisor

Jane L. Wong

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

2000

Object Description

1 PDF file (81 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Download

Comments?

Share

COinS