Within- and Between- Channel Gaps Elicit Mismatch Negativity in the Aging Brain

This is a preprint and has not been peer reviewed. Data may be preliminary. Within- and Between- Channel Gaps Elicit Mismatch Negativity in the Aging Brain Abstract Objective: This study examined how older and younger adults process silent gaps in auditory stimuli by recording cortical evoked potentials using a multi-deviant paradigm that is compared to a psychophysical gap-detection task. Design: Participants passively listened to pairs of noise markers separated by silent intervals. Markers were either spectrally identical (within-channel) or spectrally distinct (between-channel) narrowband noises. Seven gap durations served as deviants in a multi-deviant sequence. The deviance-related negativity (DRN) and the P2/P3a were recorded from fronto-central electrodes. Study Sample: Thirty-two subjects with normal hearing or minimal hearing loss participated in this study. They were separated into an older adult (mean age = 63 years) and younger adults (mean age = 24 years) group. Results: Gapped deviants significantly enhanced DRN amplitude in both within- and between-channel conditions. Age effects emerged in the peak-to-peak DRN-P2/P3a measure. Older adults showed a longer DRN latency compared to the younger group, but no condition effects. In contrast, the younger group had longer latencies in the between-channel condition only. P2/P3a responses did not show any condition or age-specific effects. Behavioral gap-detection thresholds did not differ across conditions in older adults. Conclusions: Overall, results demonstrate that electrophysiological indices provide a more sensitive marker of age-related auditory changes, revealing subtle neural alterations in temporal resolution that may precede behavioral decline. Supplementary Material File (nserc1finalsubmitted.docx) - Download - 812.61 KB Information & Authors Information Version history Copyright This work is licensed under a Non Exclusive No Reuse License. Authors Metrics & Citations Metrics Article Usage 147views 120downloads Citations Download citation Victoria Duda, Sayeed Kizuk, Erica Ogier. Within- and Between- Channel Gaps Elicit Mismatch Negativity in the Aging Brain. Authorea. 30 September 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22541/au.175926456.66048731/v1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.22541/au.175926456.66048731/v1 If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download. For more information or tips please see 'Downloading to a citation manager' in the Help menu.