Assessing F SP Index Performance as an Objective MLAEP Detector during Stimulation at Several Sound Pressure Levels

The need for a better approach for auditory screening is due to pathologies that can affect higher auditory centers. Therefore, the Middle Latency Auditory Evoked Potential (MLAEP) was investigated by using the F SP statistical index. The EEG of ten adults during click stimulation with different sound pressure levels was collected. With the critical value for the statistical null hypothesis (absence of response), particularly considering EEG as a colored noise and fitting the number of degrees of freedom of the index distribution, objective detection of MLAEP resulted in a better performance than the threshold of 3.1, commonly employed in the literature. This finding suggests the F SP for detecting MLAEP response as an auxiliary tool for determining objectively the neurophysiologic acoustical threshold level.