Measures of Auditory Inhibition in Female Smokers and Non-Smokers

This study examined the chronic effects of cigarette smoking on auditory inhibition in normal-hearing female smokers and non-smokers. Nicotine is an acetylcholinomimetic drug that affects the central auditory nervous system. Physiologic measures were acoustic reflex threshold, click-evoked optoacoustic emission (CEOAE) amplitude, contralateral CEOAE suppression, and the auditory late latency response (LLR). The behavioral measure recorded was word recognition in the presence of a broadband masker at two signal-to-noise ratios (-5 and 0dB). Auditory responses were obtained from 13 smokers and 10 non-smokers. Results indicated that smoking does not have a significant effect on these auditory measures. However, tendencies observed for the P2 and N2 latencies to increase in the direction of non-smokers’ latencies and for word recognition in noise to improve with increasing number of cigarettes smoked on the day of the test session are consistent with the theory that nicotine helps to normalize some parts of the auditory system.