Steroid treatment in sudden idiopathic neural deafness? Experimental research.

For the recording of action potential in the auditory nerve two different methods of preparation were used in order to reach at the auditory nerve of experimental animals. The remarkable fact arose that this difference in preparation also produced a difference in signal output during the hypoxygenation experiments. In the one method a solitary P1 peak--the approaching-wave--was recorded from the cochlear nerve during the hypoxygenation, whereas in the other method this solitary P1 was never seen. An explanation for this phenomenon is formulated in this article. At the same time the analogy of the 'sudden deafness' caused by affections of the cochlear nerve is compared with Bell's palsy.