The harm upon the central auditory pathways of workers exposed to occupational noise has been scarcely studied. OBJECTIVE: To assess the central auditory pathways by testing the long latency auditory evoked potentials (P300) of individuals exposed to occupational noise and controls. METHOD: This prospective study enrolled 25 individuals with normal hearing thresholds. The subjects were divided into two groups: individuals exposed to occupational noise (13 subjects; case group) and individuals not exposed to occupational noise (12 subjects; control group). The P300 test was used with verbal and non-verbal stimuli. RESULTS: No statistically significant differences were found between ears for any of the stimuli or between groups. The groups had no statistically significant difference for verbal or non-verbal stimuli. Case group subjects had longer latencies than controls. In qualitative analysis, a greater number of altered P300 test results for verbal and non-verbal stimuli was seen in the case group, despite the absence of statistically significant differences between case and control subjects. CONCLUSION: Individuals exposed to high sound pressure levels had longer P300 latencies in verbal and non-verbal stimuli when compared to controls.
electrophysiology; event-related potentials; p300; speech perception
