Influence of physical parameters of sound on the sensory gating effects of N40 in rats.

Sensory gating is the ability of the brain to modulate its sensitivity to incoming stimuli. The N40 component of the auditory evoked potential, evaluated with the paired click paradigm, was used to probe the gating effect in rats. The physical characteristics of the first and second sounds (S1 and S2), such as frequency, duration, and intensity, were altered in three experiments in this study.