The Physiological Background of the Electric Response Audiometry

Abstract

In the chapter written by Professor Hallowell Davis the clinical use of ERA (Electric Response Audiometry) in audiology is described in full detail including the early response (BERA) and the perstimulatory DC-shift. Hence, this most important subtopic of the auditory evoked responses can be omitted here. We therefore feel that our contribution in this handbook should deal with all those questions and solutions — as far as they have been elaborated — which are related to explanations from a neurophysiological background. Thus, it should be obvious that a response as complex as the auditory evoked potential must be looked at under a great variety of aspects. Even then our present knowledge does not allow us to get more than a feeling about possible avenues of the basic physiological principles involved.