Gender Difference in Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response among the Headphone Users

About 5.6 billion people use mobile phones worldwide. India ranks second position with about 885 millionusers. Apart from its function of making calls, listening to music has become one of the popular functions,the sound delivered via headphones at high intensities. The purpose was to assess the possible deleteriouseffects of headphone usage on Brain stem Evoked Response Audiometry (BERA) in both genders. The studyinvolved the recording of BERA using 30 volunteers between the age group of 18-21 years. They were dividedinto 2 groups. Group 1: Headphone users 3hrs/day. Both the groupscomprised both genders. Data were compared by unpaired Student’s t test and one-way ANOVA. There wasno significant difference in peak latencies of waves I to V and inter-peak latencies between genders on rightand left ear of headphone users, except wave V (p<0.01)on the left ear of headphone users with latencybeing more in males than in females. We conclude from the observation that prolonged headphone usagehas a negative influence on brain stem auditory evoked potentials and there was no remarkable differencebetween the genders.