What determines the amplitude decrease of event-related potentials by repeated auditory stimulation?

Repetition of auditory stimuli results in a suppression of event-related potentials (ERPs) if it occurs within a time window of approximately 0.4s to 15s. Depending on the kind of the experiment and the view of the experimenter, this process might be termed sensory gating, habituation, adaptation or refractoriness. The different denomination already indicates that the functional (and anatomical) foundation of this response decrease is yet poorly understood. One paradigm for the investigation of these foundations is the application of stimuli trains, interspersed with longer intervals of silence. The event-relate…