ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Translational Medicine
fNIRS vs. EEG in Audiological Diagnostics: Novel Approaches to Recording Brain Responses to Auditory Stimulation
Provisionally accepted
- VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Electroencephalography (EEG) is the traditional method for Auditory Evoked Potentials (AEPs) like Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response (BERA), offering excellent temporal resolution but facing limitations in portability and patient comfort. This study investigates functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) as a non-invasive, hemodynamic-based alternative. Methods: We performed simultaneous EEG and fNIRS measurements on healthy volunteers to compare responses to two auditory stimuli: rapid "clicks" (n=20) and slower, complex "warbles" (n=34). Data were analyzed using correlation, t-tests, a General Linear Model (GLM), and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to assess and compare signal quality and robustness. Results: For rapid click stimulation, EEG demonstrated its superiority in detecting millisecond-scale Jewett waves. While fNIRS showed transient features in temporal proximity to auditory brainstem responses (ABRs), it could not resolve these fast potentials. For the slower warble stimulation, fNIRS excelled, detecting significant hemodynamic changes in all participants. A comprehensive analysis, including a repeated-measures Analysis of Spatial Specificity (ANOVA), confirmed a highly structured, repeatable, and spatially specific response, arguing against systemic artifacts and supporting a neural origin. Conclusion: EEG remains the indispensable tool for rapid auditory brainstem diagnostics. However, fNIRS shows significant potential for measuring robust cortical responses to slower, more complex auditory stimuli. With advantages in comfort and portability, fNIRS can serve as a valuable complement to EEG, particularly in clinical scenarios where EEG application is constrained, such as in pediatric or mobile audiological assessments.
Keywords: fNIRS, BERA, EEG, Evoked Potentials, hemodynamic response, auditory stimulation, Audiological diagnostics
Received: 13 Jun 2025; Accepted: 20 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mimra, Augustynek and Klein. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Tomas Mimra, tomas.mimra@vsb.cz
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.