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Gating of the Auditory Evoked Potential in Children and Adults
Author(s) -
Freedman Robert,
Adler Lawrence E.,
Waldo Merilyne
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1987.tb00282.x
Subject(s) - sensory gating , gating , stimulus (psychology) , audiology , psychology , sensory system , auditory stimuli , evoked potential , neuroscience , perception , cognitive psychology , medicine
Auditory evoked potentials were recorded from 163 subjects, aged IS months to 55 years. A conditioning‐testing paradigm was used to assess sensory gating. In this paradigm, click stimuli are presented in pairs to the subjects with a 0.5‐second intrapair interval. In normal adults, the first stimulus activates or “conditions” sensory gating mechanisms. The strength of these mechanisms is “tested” by the second stimulus, which produces a response whose amplitude is significantly suppressed. This aspect of sensory gating was not reliably observed in our subjects until age 18 years. Younger subjects varied widely in their ability to demonstrate sensory gating. Mean levels of suppression increased during late childhood and adolescence, with no relationship to other changes in evoked potential amplitude and latency. Sensory gating would appear to be a late developing aspect of human sensory physiology.