Fast and reliable ASSR measurement for hearing loss detection

听力损失是世界上最常见的感觉性残疾。它也是加拿大增长最快、最普遍的慢性疾病之一。加拿大医院的高级听力测试使用脑波(或EEG)来记录听觉刺激下的听觉诱发电位(AEP)，这被认为是评估新生儿和成年人听力的最佳方法。听觉稳态反应(ASSR)信号测量是一种可以利用EEG进行听力评估的听觉反应分析方法。在这项研究应用中，我们提出了一套先进的基于时间和空间滤波技术的信号处理技术，可以改善ASSR信号在自发脑电信号和肌源性伪影中的质量。这些技术被发现在包括脑机接口(BCI)在内的非医疗应用中是有效的，使用的是稳态视觉诱发电位和生物识别。然而，到目前为止，这些技术相对于标准ASSR信号处理的优势还没有在医学应用中得到评估，特别是在ASSR诊断中。我们的主要目的是研究这些信号处理方法的可行性，以提高在临床可行时间内使用ASSR进行听力评估和客观阈值估计的可靠性。此外，除了听力评估外，还可以在一些最近出现的应用中探索所开发技术的可行性和有效性。这就是在生物识别中的ASSR估计，以及在监测脑震荡和痴呆症进展等心理健康状况方面的ASSR估计。新冠肺炎疫情已经使社会的许多部分处于极端孤立状态，包括成年人、老年人和非常年长的人。当人们不活跃或与世隔绝时，听力损失往往不会被发现。这可能对重新融入大流行后劳动力的可获得性产生负面影响。未检测到的听力损失会限制各级工作人员的表现，如果检测得到改善，对加拿大社会和经济有很大好处，就可以简单地补救。

Hearing loss is the most common sensory disability in the world. It is also one of the most fast-growing and prevailing chronic disorders in Canada. Advanced testing for hearing sense in Canadian hospitals employs brainwaves (or EEG) to record Auditory Evoked Potentials (AEPs) under auditory stimulation which is considered the best approach to assess hearing ability in newborns and adults. One auditory response that can be analyzed using EEG for hearing assessment is the Auditory Steady-State Response (ASSR) signal measurement. In this research application, we propose a set of advanced signal processing techniques based on temporal and spatial filtering techniques that can improve the ASSR signal quality over spontaneous EEG and myogenic artifacts. These techniques were found effective in non-medical applications including Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), using steady-state visual evoked potentials and biometrics. However, to date, the superiority of these techniques over standard ASSR signal processing have not been evaluated in medical applications and especially in ASSR diagnosis. Our main objective is to investigate the feasibility of these signal processing methodologies to improve the reliability of hearing assessment and objective threshold estimation using ASSR within clinically viable time. Furthermore, in addition to hearing assessment, the feasibility and effectiveness of developed technologies can be explored in a number of recently emerging applications. That, is ASSR estimation in biometric human recognition and ASSR estimation in monitoring of mental health conditions such as concussion and dementia progression.The COVID-19 pandemic has put many parts of society into extreme isolation, including adults, older members of society and the very elderly. Hearing loss can often go undetected when people are not socially active or are isolated. This can have a negative impact on the availability of people to reintegrate into the post-pandemic workforce. Undetected hearing loss can limit performance at all levels of the workforce and can be simply remedied if detection is improved with great benefits to the Canadian society and economy.