RESUMO
Objective The aim of this study was to compare the basic characters of the speech - evoked audi‐tory brainstem response (speech - ABR) in healthy young women with that in post - menopause women and to get the changes of the probable factors for the auditory brainstem pathway encoding of speech sounds in healthy post -menopause women .Methods Speech - ABR of forty - seven normal hearing subjects including twenty - seven young women and twenty post - menopause women were recorded .The speech syllable /da/ as stimulus sound was trans‐mited to right ear by the insert earphones in speech - ABR test .Results The response waves of speech - ABR in post - menopause women were similar to those in young women ,which containal the onset responses (peak V and A) ,the transition (peak C) ,the frequency following responses (peak D ,E and F) and the offset response (peak O) .Except wave C ,the latency of wave V (6 .99 ± 0 .34ms) ,wave A (8 .32 ± 0 .49 ms) and wave O (48 .86 ± 0 .50 ms) in post - menopause women were evidently longer than those of in young women (the waveV :6 .60 ± 0 .25 ms ,wave A :7 .56 ± 0 .31 ms and wave O :47 .88 ± 0 .31 ms) ,while the amplitude of wave A ( - 0 .16 ± 0 .06 μV ) and O ( - 0 .12 ± 0 .06 μV ) in post - menopause women were obviously lower (modulus) than those of in young women (the wave A : - 0 .27 ± 0 .08 μV and O : - 0 .18 ± 0 .07 μV)(P< 0 .05) .In the FFR of speech - ABR ,the latency of wave D (23 .27 ± 0 .67 ms) ,wave E (31 .88 ± 0 .58 ms) and F (40 .61 ± 1 .22 ms) in post - menopause women were also longer than those of in young women (the wave D :22 .40 ± 0 .44 ms ,wave E :31 .00 ± 0 .43 ms and F :39 .53 ± 0 .61 ms) .Besides ,the amplitudes of wave D ( - 0 .12 ± 0 .04 μV ) and F ( - 0 .08 ± 0 .06 μV ) in post -menopause women were visibly lower (modulus) than those of in young women (the wave D : - 0 .17 ± 0 .08 μV and F : - 0 .16 ± 0 .07 μV)(P< 0 .05) . ④ The V /A slope also showed very significant difference ,the V/A slope in young women was much bigger than that in post - menopause women (P< 0 .05) .Conclusion The synchronism and phase locking of auditory brainstem pathway to processing and encoding capability in healthy post - menopause women is poorer than those of in young women .It may suggest that the growth of the age and the decrease of hor‐mone will weaken the ability to processing of speech sounds in women .