Iowa Cochlear Implant Clinical Research Center Project VI

本申请要求继续爱荷华州髋关节植入物临床研究中心。听力保护和结合声学加电语音处理已经成为非常重要的概念，我们中心在识别残余声学听力的意义方面发挥了重要作用。我们相信听力保护电极将改善结果，因为它们允许用户将联合收割机电听觉刺激与任何剩余的自然听觉相结合。我们的首要目标是研究这种混合的语音处理方法如何使新的成人和儿童群体受益。我们还将研究这些侵入性较小的电极在深度耳聋婴儿中的使用，它们可能有助于保留Corti器官的结构元素，并使这一人群能够利用正在进行的未来研究来再生外周听觉系统。我们的第一个目的是比较电极长度如何影响患者的能力，以适应听觉严重失真的频率-位置图时，声加电刺激相结合。该评估将检查听力，言语和语言，音乐感知和享受的结果，并将在潜在的处理机制方面表征CI用户。因此，我们建议研究的可塑性，学习和适应机制，可能是中央预测良好的结果。我们的第二个目标是确定助听器与人工耳蜗植入物在重听儿童人群中的适当性之间的界限。第三，我们将研究是否严重失聪的婴儿发展的言语知觉和语言同样好与标准长度的人工耳蜗植入与微创电极。我们将在105名成人和80名儿童残余声听力和20名极重度耳聋婴儿中研究听力保护电极CI。对照受试者将从研究登记处获得，该登记处现已招募了335名先前植入的成人和儿童。五个研究项目，行政核心A，病人护理，语音处理和技术核心B将解决上述目标。这五个研究项目高度集成，并依赖于彼此的数据来回答实验问题。

This application requests continuation of the Iowa Cochlear Implant Clinical Research Center. Hearing preservation and combining acoustic plus electric speech processing have become very important concepts and our Center has played an important role in identifying the significance of residual acoustic hearing. We believe that hearing-preservation electrodes will improve outcomes because they allow users to combine electric auditory stimulation with any residual natural acoustic hearing. Our overarching goal is to examine how this hybrid approach to speech processing might benefit new populations of adults and children. We will also investigate the use of these less invasive electrodes in profoundly deaf infants, where they might help preserve the structural elements of the organ of Corti and enable this population to take advantage of ongoing future research to regenerate the peripheral auditory system. Our first objective aims to compare how electrode length affects the patient's ability to adapt to hearing the severely distorted frequency-place maps produced when acoustic plus electric stimulation are combined. This assessment will examine outcomes for hearing, speech and language, and music perception and enjoyment, and will also characterize Cl users in terms of underlying processing mechanisms. Thus, we propose to study the plasticity, learning, and adaptation mechanisms that might be central to predicting good outcomes. Our second objective is to define the boundaries between the appropriateness of hearing aids versus cochlear implants in populations of hard of hearing children. Third, we will examine whether profoundly deaf infants develop speech perception and language equally well with standard-length cochlear implants versus less invasive electrodes. We will study hearing-preservation electrode CIs in 105 adults and 80 children with residual acoustic hearing and 20 profoundly deaf infants. Control subjects will be obtained from a research registry that now has enrolled 335 previously implanted adults and children. Five research projects, an administrative Core A, and Patient Care, Speech Processing, and Technical Core B will address the above goals. The five research projects are highly integrated and depend on data from each other to answer the experimental questions.