Evoked otoacoustic emissions in guinea pig: basic characteristics.

Different types of evoked otoacoustic emissions (EOAEs) such as stimulus frequency emissions, tone burst and click EOAEs, were investigated in the guinea pig. Their correlates on cochlear microphonic potential were also recorded. Although it was confirmed that click EOAEs are difficult to detect in the guinea pig, partly because their delay (2 to 3 ms, measured on tone burst EOAEs) is much shorter than in man, other types of OAE were found in the interval (1.5-5 kHz) for almost every normal animal. Many of their properties were quite different from man, for instance their small number, low level, and the wide frequency range of some of them (up to 500 Hz), suggesting that they represent a sort of continuum. It is proposed that these particularities may not arise from different generating mechanisms but should be correlated with the well-known differences in hair cells patterns.