Binaural Unmasking in Children with Cochlear Implants

描述(申请人提供)：为了提高儿童在干扰刺激下定位声源和理解言语的能力，双侧人工耳蜗术在儿童中越来越受欢迎。然而，与正常听者的表现相比，双耳植入人工耳蜗者的双耳优势 接收是有限的。目前人们对双耳听力的限制来源了解甚少，但 可能包括人工耳蜗植入设备的局限性和听者听觉系统处理的局限性。通过双侧人工耳蜗的刺激提供了相对于原始声音信号的退化的双耳信息，并且可能无法培养儿童的双耳听力。提高对人工耳蜗术后儿童对双耳提示的敏感度的认识，对于改善人工耳蜗术后儿童的技术和治疗是必要的。使用直接电刺激绕过临床人工耳蜗术并呈现双侧协调刺激，检查双侧人工耳蜗术后儿童双耳掩蔽水平的差异。双侧人工耳蜗术后儿童的双耳敏感度将与双侧人工耳蜗术后的成人和听力正常的儿童进行比较。此外，听力正常的儿童的双耳敏感度将相对于听力正常的成年人进行检查。双耳掩蔽水平差是衡量双耳在噪声中检测信号的优势的量度。检查双耳掩蔽水平的差异是重要的，因为它将提高对双耳分离语音和噪声的优势的局限性的理解。本研究将通过检测双耳掩蔽水平在刺激条件下的差异来进一步了解双侧人工耳蜗植入儿童的双耳敏感性，这与现实世界的听觉刺激有关。目标1将使用单对左右电极研究刺激带宽对双耳掩蔽水平差异的影响。目标2将使用两对左右电极来研究电极间距的影响。这项研究的发现将有助于推动人工耳蜗技术的发展，使儿童受益，并将提高对听觉系统发育的理解。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Bilateral cochlear implantation in children is becoming increasingly popular in an effort to improve the ability to localize sound sources and understand speech in the presence of interfering stimuli. However, compared to the performance of normally hearing listeners, the binaural advantages that listeners with bilateral cochlear implants receive are limited. Sources of limitations in binaural hearing are currently poorly understood but may include limitations with cochlear implant devices and limitations in auditory system processing of listeners. Stimulation through bilateral cochlear implants provides degraded binaural information relative to the original acoustic signal and may fail to foster binaural hearig in children. Improving knowledge on the sensitivity of children with cochlear implants to binaural cues is necessary for improving technology and treatment of children with cochlear implants. Binaural masking level differences of children with bilateral cochlear implants will be examined using direct electrical stimulation to bypass the clinical cochlear implants and present bilaterall coordinated stimuli. Binaural sensitivity of children with bilateral cochlear implants will be examined relative to adults with bilateral cochlear implants and children with normal hearing. In addition, binaural sensitivity of children with normal hearing will be examined relative to adults with normal hearing. Binaural masking level differences are a measure of the binaural advantage for signal detection in noise. Examination of binaural masking level differences is important as it will improve understanding of limitations in the binaural advantage for segregating speech from noise. This study will further the understanding of binaural sensitivity of children with bilateral cochlear implants by examining binaural masking level differences under stimulus conditions which are relevant to real-world auditory stimuli. Aim 1 will examine the effect of stimulus bandwidth on binaural masking level differences using a single pair of left-right electrodes. Aim 2 will examine the effect of distance between electrodes using two pairs of left-right electrodes. Findings from this study will be informative for advancing cochlear implant technology in ways such that children receive benefits and will improve understanding of the development of the auditory system.