Effects of Speech in Noise Training on Physiology and Perception

产品说明： 该VA职业发展计划旨在支持申请人发展成为独立资助的VA研究科学家，调查中央听觉编码对听力障碍成功康复的贡献。职业规划是由课程，结果的出版和演示，听力学诊所的时间，并从博士指导。 这项研究的长期目标是改善老年人和听力损失患者对噪音的感知。本研究的具体目标是清楚地证明听力受损和老年人的生理和行为信噪比编码能力，并利用这种理解来探索如何通过噪声中的语音训练来改善感知和神经编码。首先，将改变信噪比和背景噪声类型，以了解重要因素，并在年轻正常听力个体、老年正常听力个体和听力损失个体中建立基线。然后，将使用噪声中的感知任务和皮层听觉诱发电位来管理和测量噪声中的语音训练。这种行为和生理信息的组合将用于确定噪声中语音训练的时间过程、泛化和保留效果。 公共卫生相关性： 在背景噪音中聆听对许多人来说是一项重大挑战，包括老年人和听力损失患者。该项目建立在我们过去的研究基础上，该研究表明皮层神经元对噪音高度敏感。将使用行为和生理措施来衡量噪声中言语训练的效果，其长期目标是改善老年人和听力损失者对噪声的感知。

DESCRIPTION: This VA Career Development proposal is designed to support the development of the applicant into an independently funded VA research scientist investigating the contribution of central auditory encoding to successful rehabilitation of hearing impairment. The career plan is made up of coursework, publication and presentation of results, audiology clinic time, and mentoring from Drs. Marjorie Leek, Kelly Tremblay, and Harry Levitt. The long-term goal of this line of research is to improve perception in noise in older individuals and individuals with hearing loss. The specific goals of this study are to clearly demonstrate the physiological and behavioral signal-in-noise encoding abilities in hearing impaired and older individuals, and to use that understanding to explore how perception and neural encoding can be improved through speech-in-noise training. First, signal-to-noise ratio and background noise type will be varied to understand important factors and to establish a baseline in young normal-hearing individuals, older normal-hearing individuals and individuals with hearing loss. Then, speech-in-noise training will be administered and measured using both perception-in-noise tasks and cortical auditory evoked potentials. This combination of behavioral and physiological information will be used to determine the time course, generalization, and retention effects of speech-in-noise training. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Listening in background noise is a major challenge for many individuals, including older individuals and individuals with hearing loss. This project builds on our past research that demonstrates that cortical neurons are highly sensitive to noise. Behavioral and physiological measures will be used to measure the effects of speech-in-noise training with the long-term goal of improving perception in noise in older individuals and individuals with hearing loss.