Electro/physiology (E)
Lilian Felipe, PhD
Professor
Lamar University
Beaumont, Texas
Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Non-Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant non-financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Musicians train their auditory system to differentiate auditory stimuli on a level that is beyond the typical listener. Professional musicians undergo continuous and specific auditory training throughout their career to recognize pitch, tempo, and rhythmic changes based solely on auditory stimulus. Most of this specific auditory training occurs primarily in the university setting as a student; however, it can begin earlier and continue throughout the musician’s career. Given the amount of training and that musical ability has always been linked to enhanced cognitive and intellectual skills, there is an interest to study musicians. We are interested in the relationship between musical ability, as short-time cognitive processing, and auditory processing as measured by auditory event-related potentials. Musicians are also exposed to increased levels of noise over time which increases the likelihood of noise-induced hearing loss. Although the risk of hearing loss is one area of concern, studies have shown that the degree and severity of noise-induced hearing loss among musicians still requires additional research. The other concern is an increased susceptibility of tinnitus and hyperacusis among musicians. These hearing disorders are often the result of hearing loss and high levels of noise exposure. Additionally, the possibility of auditory processing decline with hearing loss could have repercussions on a musician’s career and should be considered. For these reasons the monitoring of musician’s hearing status should be introduced early.
The proposed study is cross-sectional in nature and will be reviewed by an Institutional Review Board for approval. Participants will include musician and non-musician (control group) students from Lamar University above the age of 18 of both genders. Participants will be excluded if they are not current Lamar students at the time of data collection and are 18 years old or younger. Objective measures for auditory processing will be gathered via P300 for both groups to evaluate the relationship between auditory processing ability and musical ability. Additionally, we are interested in the hearing status of musician students due to their increased exposure to noise. The study means to determine if there are signs of damage to the cochlear hair cells present using otoacoustic emissions. It has been noted that otoacoustic emission measures can indicate cochlear hair cell damage that are not yet observable through behavioral audiometry measures. It is hypothesized that musician students will have better P300 results with a possible impact related to years of musical training. Otoacoustic emission results are hypothesized to indicate decreased or absent responses from the musician group compared to the control group. Musician students at the university level were selected for this study due to existing gaps in the literature regarding this population as most research findings are regarding professionally established musicians beyond the university level. These findings will provide further insight concerning musicians regarding their auditory processing ability and hearing status at this stage in their musical development.