Measurement of extensive auditory discrimination profiles using the mismatch negativity (MMN) of the auditory event-related potential (ERP) Satu Pakarinen a,b, * , Rika Takegata a,b , Teemu Rinne c , Minna Huotilainen a,b,d , Risto Na ¨a ¨ta ¨nen a,b a Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014, Finland b Helsinki Brain Research Centre, Helsinki, Finland c Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland d Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland Accepted 4 September 2006 Available online 27 October 2006 Abstract Objective: Mismatch negativity (MMN), a change-specific component of the auditory event-related potential (ERP), is sensitive to def- icits in central auditory processing associated with many clinical conditions. The aim of this study was to obtain a comprehensive multi- dimensional profile of central auditory processing by extending the recently developed fast multi-feature MMN paradigm [Na ¨a ¨ta ¨nen R, Pakarinen S, Rinne T, Takegata R. The mismatch negativity (MMN): towards the optimal paradigm. Clin Neurophysiol 2004;115:140– 144]. Methods: MMN responses to changes in sound duration, frequency, intensity, and perceived sound-source location at six different mag- nitudes of deviation were recorded from healthy young adults by using the multi-feature MMN paradigm. In addition, behavioural dis- crimination accuracy and speed were measured to examine the relationship between MMN and behavioural performance. Results: All the 24 sound changes elicited significant MMNs. MMN amplitude increased and latency decreased with increasing magni- tude of sound change. Furthermore, the MMN amplitude and latency predicted the subjects’ accuracy and speed in detecting these deviations. Conclusions: This new paradigm provides an extensive auditory discrimination profile for several auditory attributes at different devia- tion magnitudes in a minimal recording time. Significance: The auditory discrimination profiles can offer a comprehensive view of the development, plasticity, and deficits of central auditory processing. Ó 2006 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Mismatch negativity (MMN); Event-related potential (ERP); Central auditory processing; Sound discrimination 1. Introduction The mismatch negativity (MMN), a component of the auditory event-related potential (ERP), is elicited by any discriminable violation of some regular aspect in the pre- ceding auditory stimulus sequence (Na ¨a ¨ta ¨nen, 1990, 1992; Na ¨a ¨ta ¨nen et al., 2001; Na ¨a ¨ta ¨nen and Winkler, 1999). It is thought to reflect the output of a pre-attentive memory- based comparison process, where the incoming sound is compared with, and found to be deviant from, the neural representation (memory trace) of the regularities extracted from the preceding auditory input. An increasing degree of sound deviance results in a larger MMN amplitude and shorter latency, as well as heightened behavioural detection accuracy and speed (Lang et al., 1990; Sams et al., 1985; 1388-2457/$32.00 Ó 2006 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2006.09.001 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +358 9 191 29462; fax: +358 9 191 29450. E-mail address: satu.pakarinen@helsinki.fi (S. Pakarinen). www.elsevier.com/locate/clinph Clinical Neurophysiology 118 (2007) 177–185