Neural correlates of short-term adaptation processes and perceptual learning in the higher auditory system in complex listening situations during simultaneous acquisition of behavioural measures.

在复杂的听力环境中理解言语的缺陷是听力损失最重要的后果之一。根据Hear-it AISBL委托的一份2006年报告，16%的欧洲成年人，即，超过7100万人患有听力损失大于25 dB，这是世界卫生组织认可的听力损失定义。助听器和人工耳蜗等听力假体（HP）可以帮助恢复中度至重度听力损失的听力。然而，尽管HP技术已经发展了100多年，但HP用户在复杂的收听情况下的表现仍然很差。为了能够改进HP的设计，需要更深入地了解听觉系统及其在动态和复杂声学环境中的适应机制。该项目旨在促进对刺激背景和感知学习如何影响成熟大脑功能组织的理解。以往的研究结果在听觉系统中的谐波复合刺激的处理将首次用于评估这种短期的适应和塑性重组过程中的感知学习在听觉系统的成熟的大脑。因此，拟议项目的主要目标是确定机制，使听觉系统的更高层次的神经元迅速适应他们的神经元响应动态变化的复杂刺激，并调查长期变化的神经元反应模式和他们的特异性，同时学习听觉检测任务使用谐波复杂的刺激。同时记录神经元的反应与慢性电极植入清醒和行为的动物的新方法将被应用，允许神经元的反应模式的感知行为的直接相关性。

Deficits in understanding speech in complex listening situations is one of the most important consequences of hearing loss. According to a 2006 report commissioned by Hear-it AISBL, 16% of all adult Europeans, i.e., more than 71 million people, suffer from a hearing loss greater than 25 dB, the definition of hearing loss recognised by the World Health Organisation. Hearing prostheses (HP) such as hearing aids and cochlear implants can help to restore the hearing with moderate to profound hearing loss. However, despite over 100 years of advances in HP technology the performance of HP users is still poor in complex listening situations. To be able to improve the design of HP, a deeper understanding of the auditory system and its adaptation mechanisms in dynamic and complex acoustic environments is needed. The proposed project aims to advance the understanding of how stimulus context and perceptual learning influence the functional organization of the mature brain. Previous findings on the processing of harmonic complex stimuli in the auditory system will be used for the first time to evaluate such short-term adaptation and plastic reorganization during perceptual learning in the auditory system of the mature brain. Therefore, key objectives of the proposed project are to identify mechanisms by which neurons in higher levels of the auditory system rapidly adapt their neuronal responses to dynamically changing complex stimuli and to investigate long-term changes in the neuronal response pattern and their specificity while learning an auditory detection task using harmonic complex stimuli. The novel approach of simultaneously recording neuronal responses with chronic electrode implants from awake and behaving animals will be applied which allows the direct correlation of neuronal response patterns to perceptual behaviour.