A flexible and inexpensive high-performance auditory evoked response recording system appropriate for research purposes

Abstract

Recording auditory evoked responses (AER) is done not only in hospitals and clinics worldwide to detect hearing impairments and estimate hearing thresholds, but also in research centers to understand and model the mechanisms involved in the process of hearing. This paper describes a high-performance, flexible, and inexpensive AER recording system. A full description of the hardware and software modules that compose the AER recording system is provided. The performance of this system was evaluated by conducting five experiments with both real and artificially synthesized auditory brainstem response and middle latency response signals at different intensity levels and stimulation rates. The results indicate that the flexibility of the described system is appropriate to record AER signals under several recording conditions. The AER recording system described in this article is a flexible and inexpensive high-performance AER recording system. This recording system also incorporates a platform through which users are allowed to implement advanced signal processing methods. Moreover, its manufacturing cost is significantly lower than that of other commercially available alternatives. These advantages may prove useful in many research applications in audiology.