Recruitment deafness: Functional effect of priming-induced audiogenic seizures in mice.

Investigated the absolute threshold of the auditory evoked potential (AEP) at the level of the inferior colliculus in 30 C57BL/6J mice. In Exp I, acoustic priming at 16 days of age, which induces susceptibility to audiogenic seizures, elevated this threshold for individual frequencies from 5 kHz to 25 kHz in 21-day-old mice by 5-11 db. In Exp II, the amplitude of the AEP was examined in response to a flat 10-20 kHz noise band. At low intensities, the AEP amplitude was considerably higher for nonprimed Ss, but at high sound levels this relationship reversed. Results indicate that primed mice show recruitment deafness and offer a method of investigating recruitment deafness in humans. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)