Re: painfully loud sound

["Vermiglio, Andy" <AVermiglio@xxxxxxx>]

I believe this is what was occurring when presenting high level pure tones to the deaf ear of a patient with a unilateral hearing loss.  I thought (as a grad student) that this individual was pretending to be deaf.  He claimed to not hear the loud tones, but kept flinching in time with the loud stimulus presentations.  He was probably responding to pain at the tympanic membrane.

Andy

 -----Original Message-----
From:   AUDITORY  Research in Auditory Perception [mailto:AUDITORY@LISTS.MCGILL.CA]  On Behalf Of Didier Depireux, PhD
Sent:   Thursday, November 11, 2004 3:38 PM
To:     AUDITORY@LISTS.MCGILL.CA
Subject:        Re: painfully loud sound

On 11/9/04 7:56 PM, "jan schnupp" <jan.schnupp@PHYSIOL.OX.AC.UK> wrote:

> nociceptive pathways and pain) I wondered: what determines whether we
> would consider a particular sound to be painfully loud?

I don't remember what it feels like to feel a "painfully loud" sound
(whether it is felt inside the head, or just in the ear in general), but
wouldn't the tympanic membrane itself be a good candidate for the pain
sensation? The tympanum is innervated by four of the cranial nerves,
providing general sensation through trigeminal, facial and vagal cranial
nerves on the outside surface and glossopharyngeal nerve for the inside
surface.
I guess this might be partially answered if I knew whether people who lose
their hair cells still perceive loud sounds as being painful right after
hair cell loss, even though they might not perceive the sound as being that
loud?

                                    Didier

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