Subcortical neural response to click and speech stimuli in infants and young children with congenital cytomegalovirus: a preliminary study.

PURPOSE: To analyze the neural response of the subcortical pathway through click and speech stimuli in infants and young children with congenital cytomegalovirus (CMVc).

METHODS

Cross-sectional and prospective study. The sample consisted of infants and young children with a median age of 6.43 months (Q1-Q3: 2.62-11.25) in the CMV group (G1; n=10) and 6.23 months (Q1-Q3: 1.60-12.06) in the control group (G2; n=10). All participants underwent Transient Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions (TEOAE) and bilateral peak positive pressure tympanometry. The procedures included anamnesis, Auditory Brainstem Response with click stimulus (ABR-click), and Frequency Following Response (FFR). Click ABR was performed at intensities of 80 and 30 dB nHL in both ears. FFR was recorded in the right ear with a speech stimulus /da/ of 170 ms. FFR responses were analyzed in the temporal and spectral domains, regarding neural synchrony, spectral representation, and stability of the speech response. The Mann-Whitney test or Student's t-test was applied for intergroup analysis. The Wilcoxon test was applied for intragroup analysis.

RESULTS

In the analysis of click ABR latencies and amplitudes, as well as in FFR measurements related to subcortical neural coding of speech, no statistically significant differences were observed between groups or between ears in the intergroup analysis.

CONCLUSION

Preliminary results indicate a similar pattern of subcortical neural coding of speech and neural synchrony in infants and young children with and without CMVc.