Investigation of acoustic reflex in cats with brainstem auditory evoked potential (Baer) test

With the increasing interest of veterinarians and pet owners in non-invasive diagnostic tests, basic audiological assessment tests have become more common. The BAER test can be used as a safe method in the examination of conduction in the auditory pathways of the brain stem, which cannot be evaluated with other test techniques. The information obtained in the field of veterinary audiology is generally based on studies performed on dogs and experimental animals. In this study, it was aimed to investigate the evaluability of the acoustic reflex, which is used in the evaluation of hearing in newborns in human medicine, with the BAER test in cats, and to reveal the latency, amplitude and interpeak latency values of the responses obtained with the click stimulus BAER in cats, with a large number of cases. This study included 50 cats, 26 male and 24 female, of different breeds and ages, brought to Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University Veterinary Faculty Animal Hospital Surgery Clinic and operated for various indications. Intravenous propofol 4 mg/kg was used for induction in cats included in the study, anesthesia was continued with sevoflurane after intubation. Tympanograms were taken and acoustic reflex test was performed for cats without external ear infection, parasitic infestation and normal eardrum with otovideoscopic examination. After the preliminary examination, the BAER recordings of the cats were taken with a click stimulus, starting from 100 dB HL, and decreasing by 10 dB until the threshold level where the trace disappears. The results suggest acoustic reflex, especially in 90 dB, 100 dB measurements, but more studies are recommended on this subject.