scholarly journals Cochlear Place of Stimulation Is One Determinant of Cochlear Implant Sound Quality

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 264-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F. Dorman ◽  
Sarah Cook Natale ◽  
Leslie Baxter ◽  
Daniel M. Zeitler ◽  
Mathew L. Carlson ◽  
...  

Objective: Our aim was to determine the effect of acute changes in cochlear place of stimulation on cochlear implant (CI) sound quality. Design: In Experiment 1, 5 single-sided deaf (SSD) listeners fitted with a long (28-mm) electrode array were tested. Basal shifts in place of stimulation were implemented by turning off the most apical electrodes and reassigning the filters to more basal electrodes. In Experiment 2, 2 SSD patients fitted with a shorter (16.5-mm) electrode array were tested. Both basal and apical shifts in place of stimulation were implemented. The apical shifts were accomplished by current steering and creating a virtual place of stimulation more apical that that of the most apical electrode. Results: Listeners matched basal shifts by shifting, in the normal-hearing ear, the overall spectrum up in frequency and/or increasing voice pitch (F0). Listeners matched apical shifts by shifting down the overall frequency spectrum in the normal-hearing ear. Conclusion: One factor determining CI voice quality is the location of stimulation along the cochlear partition.

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 329-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torsten Rahne ◽  
Michael Ziese ◽  
Dorothea Rostalski ◽  
Roland Mühler

This paper describes a logatome discrimination test for the assessment of speech perception in cochlear implant users (CI users), based on a multilingual speech database, the Oldenburg Logatome Corpus, which was originally recorded for the comparison of human and automated speech recognition. The logatome discrimination task is based on the presentation of 100 logatome pairs (i.e., nonsense syllables) with balanced representations of alternating “vowel-replacement” and “consonant-replacement” paradigms in order to assess phoneme confusions. Thirteen adult normal hearing listeners and eight adult CI users, including both good and poor performers, were included in the study and completed the test after their speech intelligibility abilities were evaluated with an established sentence test in noise. Furthermore, the discrimination abilities were measured electrophysiologically by recording the mismatch negativity (MMN) as a component of auditory event-related potentials. The results show a clear MMN response only for normal hearing listeners and CI users with good performance, correlating with their logatome discrimination abilities. Higher discrimination scores for vowel-replacement paradigms than for the consonant-replacement paradigms were found. We conclude that the logatome discrimination test is well suited to monitor the speech perception skills of CI users. Due to the large number of available spoken logatome items, the Oldenburg Logatome Corpus appears to provide a useful and powerful basis for further development of speech perception tests for CI users.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Somers ◽  
Christopher J. Long ◽  
Tom Francart

AbstractThe cochlear implant is one of the most successful medical prostheses, allowing deaf and severely hearing-impaired persons to hear again by electrically stimulating the auditory nerve. A trained audiologist adjusts the stimulation settings for good speech understanding, known as “fitting” the implant. This process is based on subjective feedback from the user, making it time-consuming and challenging, especially in paediatric or communication-impaired populations. Furthermore, fittings only happen during infrequent sessions at a clinic, and therefore cannot take into account variable factors that affect the user’s hearing, such as physiological changes and different listening environments. Objective audiometry, in which brain responses evoked by auditory stimulation are collected and analysed, removes the need for active patient participation. However, recording of brain responses still requires expensive equipment that is cumbersome to use. An elegant solution is to record the neural signals using the implant itself. We demonstrate for the first time the recording of continuous electroencephalographic (EEG) signals from the implanted intracochlear electrode array in human subjects, using auditory evoked potentials originating from different brain regions. This was done using a temporary recording set-up with a percutaneous connector used for research purposes. Furthermore, we show that the response morphologies and amplitudes depend crucially on the recording electrode configuration. The integration of an EEG system into cochlear implants paves the way towards chronic neuro-monitoring of hearing-impaired patients in their everyday environment, and neuro-steered hearing prostheses, which can autonomously adjust their output based on neural feedback.


Author(s):  
Philipp Aebischer ◽  
Georgios Mantokoudis ◽  
Stefan Weder ◽  
Lukas Anschutz ◽  
Marco Caversaccio ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 4144
Author(s):  
Ohad Cohen ◽  
Jean-Yves Sichel ◽  
Chanan Shaul ◽  
Itay Chen ◽  
J. Thomas Roland ◽  
...  

Although malpositioning of the cochlear implant (CI) electrode array is rare in patients with normal anatomy, when occurring it may result in reduced hearing outcome. In addition to intraoperative electrophysiologic tests, imaging is an important modality to assess correct electrode array placement. The purpose of this report was to assess the incidence and describe cases in which intraoperative plain radiographs detected a malpositioned array. Intraoperative anti-Stenver’s view plain X-rays are conducted routinely in all CI surgeries in our tertiary center before awakening the patient and breaking the sterile field. Data of patients undergoing 399 CI surgeries were retrospectively analyzed. A total of 355 had normal inner ear and temporal bone anatomy. Patients with intra or extracochlear malpositioned electrode arrays demonstrated in the intraoperative X-ray were described. There were four cases of electrode array malposition out of 355 implantations with normal anatomy (1.1%): two tip fold-overs, one extracochlear placement and one partial insertion. All electrodes were reinserted immediately; repeated radiographs were normal and the patients achieved good hearing function. Intraoperative plain anti-Stenver’s view X-rays are valuable to confirm electrode array location, allowing correction before the conclusion of surgery. These radiographs are cheaper, faster, and emit much less radiation than other imaging options, making them a viable cost-effective tool in patients with normal anatomy.


2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (06) ◽  
pp. 500-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. G. Maglione ◽  
A. Scorpecci ◽  
P. Malerba ◽  
P. Marsella ◽  
S. Giannantonio ◽  
...  

SummaryObjectives: The aim of the present study is to investigate the variations of the electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha rhythm in order to measure the appreciation of bilateral and unilateral young cochlear implant users during the observation of a musical cartoon. The cartoon has been modified for the generation of three experimental conditions: one with the original audio, another one with a distorted sound and, finally, a mute version.Methods: The EEG data have been recorded during the observation of the cartoons in the three experimental conditions. The frontal alpha EEG imbalance has been calculated as a measure of motivation and pleasantness to be compared across experimental populations and conditions.Results: The EEG frontal imbalance of the alpha rhythm showed significant variations during the perception of the different cartoons. In particular, the pattern of activation of normal-hearing children is very similar to the one elicited by the bilateral implanted patients. On the other hand, results related to the unilateral subjects do not present significant variations of the imbalance index across the three cartoons.Conclusion: The presented results suggest that the unilateral patients could not appreciate the difference in the audio format as well as bilaterally implanted and normal hearing subjects. The frontal alpha EEG imbalance is a useful tool to detect the differences in the appreciation of audiovisual stimuli in cochlear implant patients.


2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCEL R. GIEZEN ◽  
PAOLA ESCUDERO ◽  
ANNE E. BAKER

AbstractThis study investigates the role of acoustic salience and hearing impairment in learning phonologically minimal pairs. Picture-matching and object-matching tasks were used to investigate the learning of consonant and vowel minimal pairs in five- to six-year-old deaf children with a cochlear implant (CI), and children of the same age with normal hearing (NH). In both tasks, the CI children showed clear difficulties with learning minimal pairs. The NH children also showed some difficulties, however, particularly in the picture-matching task. Vowel minimal pairs were learned more successfully than consonant minimal pairs, particularly in the object-matching task. These results suggest that the ability to encode phonetic detail in novel words is not fully developed at age six and is affected by task demands and acoustic salience. CI children experience persistent difficulties with accurately mapping sound contrasts to novel meanings, but seem to benefit from the relative acoustic salience of vowel sounds.


2021 ◽  
Vol 405 ◽  
pp. 108235
Author(s):  
Samuel Söderqvist ◽  
Satu Lamminmäki ◽  
Antti Aarnisalo ◽  
Timo Hirvonen ◽  
Saku T. Sinkkonen ◽  
...  

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