Alcohol is an addictive and habit-forming chemical showing its effects for sleep or anesthesia. It is known as an inhibitor on the central nervous system affecting brain function or resulting in brain damage. A long-term, excessive abuse of alcohol ma...
Alcohol is an addictive and habit-forming chemical showing its effects for sleep or anesthesia. It is known as an inhibitor on the central nervous system affecting brain function or resulting in brain damage. A long-term, excessive abuse of alcohol may lead to alcohol addiction. Alcohol addiction is closely associated with the metabolism of particular chemicals called neurotransmitters among biological changes on the cerebral nervous system. Although previous studies have been conducted on the increase of the threshold of hearing related to alcohol drinking, no research has been performed on differences in auditory evoked responses between subjects with and without alcohol addiction. The purpose of this study is to examine if the latency and amplitude of auditory evoked responses vary in accordance with the presence of addiction in alcoholics and non-alcoholics.
In this study, 32 men at the age of 50 to 70 (57.5±4.7) participated. They were grouped into patients (17 person, 57.6±5.3 years old) diagnosed as alcohol addiction according to the criteria of the statistical manual Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th edition (DSM-5) and normal drinkers (15 persons, 57.2±4.2 years old) of the same age residing in Daegu province. Every subject who had visited the Department of Mental Health at the Catholic University of Daegu Medical Center went through screening tests (pure tone audiometry, speech audiometry, tympanometry) to see if they have normal hearing. The subjects with normal hearing were included in this study. About auditory brainstem responses, waves Ⅰ, Ⅲ, and Ⅴ’s absolute latency and interpeak latency among the waves as well as amplitudes were measured. For auditory middle latency responses, Na, Pa, Nb, and Pb waves’ absolute latency and amplitudes were measured.
There were significant differences in waves Ⅰ, Ⅲ, and Ⅴ’s absolute latency and interpeak latency of auditory brainstem responses between patients with and without alcohol addiction, and there was no significant difference in amplitudes of waves Ⅰ, Ⅲ and Ⅴ. In auditory middle latency responses, Na and Pa waves’ amplitudes indicated significant difference between patients with and without alcohol addiction, but Nb and Pb waves’ amplitudes did not show significant difference. Moreover, Na, Pa, Nb, and Pb waves’ absolute latency did not indicate significant difference. These findings suggest that abusive consumption of alcohol may result in structural and/or neurochemical alterations at various levels in the auditory pathway.
Keywords: auditory evoked responses, alcohol addiction, auditory brainstem response, auditory middle latency response, latency, amplitude