Identifying Cochlear Implant Channels With Poor Electrode-Neuron Interfaces: Electrically Evoked Auditory Brain Stem Responses Measured With the Partial Tripolar Configuration

Conclusions: These results suggest that behavioral thresholds or EABRs measured with a restricted stimulus can be used to identify potentially impaired cochlear implant channels. Channels having high thresholds and steep growth functions would likely not activate the appropriate spatially restricted region of the cochlea, leading to suboptimal perception. As a clinical tool, quick identification of impaired channels could lead to patient-specific mapping strategies and result in improved speech and music perception.

from Ear and Hearing

Listening and Communication Enhancement Training (LACE 4, Home Edition) – Training Software [CD]. Redwood City, CA: Neurotone, Inc. (http://www.neurotone.com )

An abstract is unavailable

from Ear and Hearing

Perception of Environmental Sounds by Experienced Cochlear Implant Patients

Conclusions: Present findings indicate that environmental sound identification is difficult for CI patients. They further suggest that speech and environmental sounds may overlap considerably in their perceptual processing. Certain spectrotemproral processing abilities are separately associated with speech and environmental sound performance. However, they do not appear to mediate the relationship between speech and environmental sounds in CI patients. Environmental sound rehabilitation may be beneficial to some patients. Environmental sound testing may have potential diagnostic applications, especially with difficult-to-test populations and might also be predictive of speech performance for prelingually deafened patients with cochlear implants.

from Ear and Hearing

Potential Benefits From Deeply Inserted Cochlear Implant Electrodes

Conclusions: Benefits in terms of speech recognition and other performance measures are less clear. Several studies have indicated that deactivation of apical electrodes results in poorer speech recognition performance, but these have been mostly acute studies where the subjects have been accustomed to the full complement of electrodes, thus making interpretation difficult. Some chronic studies have suggested that apical electrodes do provide additional performance benefit, but others have shown performance improvement after deactivating some of the apical electrodes. Whether or not deeply inserted electrodes can offer performance benefits, there is evidence that currently available designs tend to produce more intracochlear trauma than shorter arrays, in terms of loss of residual acoustic hearing and reduction of the neural substrate. This may have important long-term consequences for the user. Furthermore, as it is possible that subjects with better low-frequency residual hearing are more likely to benefit from the inclusion of apical electrodes, there may be a potential clinical dilemma as the same subjects are those most likely to benefit from bimodal electroacoustic stimulation, requiring a relatively shallow insertion.

from Ear and Hearing

Speech Intelligibility as a Predictor of Cochlear Implant Outcome in Prelingually Deafened Adults

Conclusions: The new test battery (or its reduced version), used as a measure of intelligibility, is a promising tool for guiding cochlear implant candidacy decisions and counseling for individual patients with prelingual deafness. Because intelligibility has superior predictive power in comparison to age at onset of deafness, the latter should be discarded as an exclusion criterion for cochlear implantation.

from Ear and Hearing

The Effect of Different Cochlear Implant Microphones on Acoustic Hearing Individuals’ Binaural Benefits for Speech Perception in Noise

Conclusions: This study provides a means to measure the degree to which cochlear implant microphones affect acoustic hearing with respect to speech perception in noise. It also provides measures that can be used to evaluate the independent contributions of interaural time and level cues. These measures provide tools that can aid researchers in understanding and improving binaural benefits in acoustic hearing individuals listening via cochlear implant microphones.

from Ear and Hearing

The Effect of Presentation Level on Memory Performance

Conclusions: A high presentation level of distorted words can adversely affect memory even after intelligibility is equated for. Moreover, older listeners are affected at lower presentation levels. Hence, the choice of sound level, particularly for older listeners, is important and may affect their level of cognitive performance beyond its effects on intelligibility. Higher presentation levels may not always lead to better performance when the task involves recall of words previously heard.

from Ear and Hearing

The Perception of Sentence Stress in Cochlear Implant Recipients

Conclusions: The outcome emphasizes the importance of both F0 and intensity for CI users’ identification of sentence-based stress. Both cues were used separately for stress perception, but combining the cues provided extra benefit for most of the subjects.

from Ear and Hearing

Using the Auditory Steady State Response to Record Response Amplitude Curves. A Possible Fast Objective Method for Diagnosing Dead Regions

Conclusions: These initial results indicate that the swept- and fixed-masking methods appear to be viable and fast ways to record RACs in normal-hearing adults. Further work is needed to further optimize the accuracy of the tip frequency estimation and to establish the normative range of tip frequencies over a wide range of test frequencies in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects.

from Ear and Hearing

Prior Expectation Mediates Neural Adaptation to Repeated Sounds in the Auditory Cortex: An MEG Study

Repetition suppression, the phenomenon that the second presentation of a stimulus attenuates neural activity, is typically viewed as an automatic consequence of repeated stimulus presentation. However, a recent neuroimaging study has suggested that repetition suppression may be driven by top-down expectations. Here we examined whether and when repetition suppression can be modulated by top-down expectation. Participants listened to auditory stimuli in blocks where tone repetitions were either expected or unexpected, while we recorded ongoing neural activity using magnetoencephalography. We found robust repetition suppression in the auditory cortex for repeated tones. Interestingly, this reduction was significantly larger for expected than unexpected repetitions, both in terms of evoked activity and gamma-band synchrony. These findings indicate a role of top-down expectation in generating repetition suppression and are in line with predictive coding models of perception, in which the difference between expected and actual input is propagated from lower to higher cortical areas.

from the Journal of Neuroscience

Comparison of auditory electrophysiological responses in normal-hearing patients with and without tinnitus

Conclusion: The pathogenesis and optimum management of tinnitus are still unclear. It often occurs with primary ear disease, usually associated with hearing loss, but may occur in patients with normal hearing. Observed changes in auditory brainstem and middle latency responses indicate central auditory alterations. Tinnitus involves both peripheral and central activity, and complete audiological and neurophysiological investigation is required. Management should be based on both audiological and neurophysiological findings.

from the Journal of Laryngology and Otology

Evaluation of voice and quality of life after transoral endoscopic laser resection of early glottic carcinoma

Conclusion: Transoral laser resection of T1 and T2 glottic carcinoma enables adequate tumour tissue excision with preservation of acceptable vocal function. Most patients’ post-operative quality of life is very good. Anterior commissure web formation is associated with poorer vocal function.

from the Journal of Laryngology and Otology

Foreign body aspiration and language spoken at home: 10-year review

Conclusion: Patients from non-English speaking backgrounds had a significantly higher incidence of food (particularly nut) aspiration. Awareness-raising and public education is needed in relevant communities to prevent certain foods, particularly nuts, being given to children too young to chew and swallow them adequately.

from the Journal of Laryngology and Otology

Pitfalls in the management of monaural deafness

Conclusion: Cochlear implantation in patients with long-term deafness should be considered carefully, even if deafness is monaural.

from the Journal of Laryngology and Otology

The use of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions as a hearing screen following grommet insertion

Conclusion: Transient evoked otoacoustic emission testing offers a sensitive means of detecting hearing loss of ≥30 dB following grommet insertion in children. However, the use of such testing as a screening tool may miss some cases of mild hearing loss.

from the Journal of Laryngology and Otology