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Suppression of transient-evoked otoacoustic emissions was recorded from 29 members of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and 28 non-musician control subjects matched for age and gender. Binaural broad band noise was used as the suppressor stimulus in a forward masking paradigm. Results showed musicians to have significantly more suppression than non-musicians for both the right and left ears. Two possible explanations for this functional difference between groups are that moderately loud music serves as a sound conditioning stimulus and that music can be a mechanism for strengthening central auditory pathways which may influence the olivocochlear reflex arc. Possible explanations for this are discussed and ear, gender, and age differences within each group are examined. Additionally, middle-ear muscle reflex thresholds were found to be higher in musicians than non-musicians at some frequencies in some conditions.

Function of the olivocochlear reflex, measured by suppression of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions, is assessed in nine patients with bilateral auditory neuropathy/dys-synchrony and compared to matched control subjects with normal auditory function. TEOAEs were acquired using 65 dB peak sound pressure linear clicks with and without the presence of broad-band noise presented binaurally, ipsilaterally, or contralaterally in a forward masking paradigm. Efferent suppression differed significantly between subject groups (p < .0001). Mean suppression was less than 0.22 dB across all suppressor noise conditions for the auditory neuropathy/dys-synchrony subjects. TEOAE suppression averaged 4.47 (binaural), 2.41 (ipsilateral), and 1.52 (contralateral) dB in the control subjects. Suppression characteristics across the three suppressor conditions were also assessed in one patient with unilateral auditory neuropathy/dys-synchrony. The results suggest that poor efferent responses are related to compromised afferent input to the OCR pathway and support the use of efferent suppression of otoacoustic emissions as a differential measure of auditory function in patients with auditory neuropathy/dys-synchrony.