Most traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are classified as mild (mTBI), yet they can still be associated with lasting behavioral, sensory, cognitive, and neural changes. Recent studies show that individuals with a history of mTBI (hmTBI) experience auditory sensitivities (e.g., noise annoyance and hyperacusis). Here, we tested whether we could detect early auditory processing alterations in individuals with a hmTBI using well-characterized event-related potentials (ERPs) sensitive to auditory sensory responses, specifically the N100, and the mismatch negativity (MMN) waveform. Eighteen participants with a self-reported hmTBI and 25 control participants completed a passive oddball task in which infrequent pitch-deviant tones were interleaved amidst frequent standard tones, during which EEG was recorded. We examined N100 and MMN amplitude and latency, using frequentist and Bayesian analyses. Across analyses, there were no significant group differences. The Bayes factors provided anecdotal to moderate support for the null hypothesis. These results show that undergraduates with hmTBI exhibit intact early auditory processes. Future research should examine whether later, top-down processes contribute to enduring auditory symptoms.
