Comparison of electrophonic and auditory-nerve electroneural responses.

Electrophonic and auditory-nerve electroneural responses were recorded from the inferior colliculus of the cat. The electrophonic response appeared at a latency 1.0-1.5 ms later than the electroneural response, due to the time requirements for cochlear transduction. The electrophonic response also demonstrated very slow growth of response amplitude with increasing stimulus current as compared to the electroneural response. Aminoglycoside perfusion of the cochlea eliminated the electrophonic component from the evoked response record and left the electroneural component relatively unchanged, indicating that the electrophonic is an acoustic stimulus that requires an intact auditory end organ for transduction.