Sensory room: Naturalistic assessment of auditory and visual perception in developing children.

Introduction: Hearing is essential for language acquisition and understanding the environment. Understanding how children react to auditory and visual information is essential for appropriate management in case of hearing loss. Objective and subjective assessments can diagnose hearing loss, but do not measure natural perception in children.

The French MBAA2 sentence recognition in noise test for cochlear implant users.

Objective: The "Marginal benefit from acoustic amplification" version 2 (MBAA2) sentence test has been used in France in the routine evaluation of cochlear implant (CI) users for 20 years. Here we present four studies that characterise and validate the test, and compare it with the French matrix sentence test.

Design And Sample: An analytic method was developed to obtain speech recognition threshold in noise (SNR50) from testing at a fixed signal to noise ratios (SNRs).

Categorization of everyday sounds by cochlear implanted children.

Auditory categorization is an important process in the perception and understanding of everyday sounds. The use of cochlear implants (CIs) may affect auditory categorization and result in poor abilities. The current study was designed to compare how children with normal hearing (NH) and children with CIs categorize a set of everyday sounds.

Technical aids for speech understanding in cochlear implanted adults using cell-phones.

Objectives: The present study sought to assess (1) phone use habits and awareness of listening aids in adult cochlear implant bearers, and (2) objective and subjective benefit of listening aids for cell-phone communication.

Material And Methods: A questionnaire was sent to 17 cochlear (Cochlear(®)) implanted adults to assess phone use and awareness of available listening aids. Speech perception without lip-reading was assessed in silence and in noise using Fournier dissyllabic word lists recorded on an iPhone 5C(®), with and without listening aids.

Cochlear reimplantations: technical and surgical failures.

Conclusion: Cochlear implant surgeons should have a good knowledge of how to diagnose device failures and how to deal with medical complications related to cochlear implantation. Electrode array misplacement may be due to unidentified inner ear malformation. Use of peroperative telemetry and radiographic examination should help to avoid such complications.

The size of the cochlea and predictions of insertion depth angles for cochlear implant electrodes.

Aims: To establish normative data on the size of the basal turn of the cochlea using high-resolution computed tomography of the temporal bone in adults and children. To determine whether final insertion depth angle for a perimodiolar cochlear implant electrode varies according to cochlear size.

Methods: Forty-two patients screened for cochlear anomaly using computed tomography were randomly selected from patients with otologic disease.

Effect of age and gender on citalopram and desmethylcitalopram steady-state plasma concentrations in adults and elderly depressed patients.

The effect of aging on steady-state plasma concentrations of citalopram (CIT) and desmethylcitalopram (DCIT) was investigated in 128 depressive patients treated with 10-80 mg/day CIT. They were separated into three groups, with age up to 64 years (mean age+/-S.D.

Modeling the relationship between psychophysical perception and electrically evoked compound action potential threshold in young cochlear implant recipients: clinical implications for implant fitting.

Objective: In cochlear implant recipients, the threshold of the electrically evoked compound action potential (ECAP) has been shown to correlate with the perceptual detection threshold and maximum comfortable loudness levels (respectively, T- and C-levels) used for implant programming. Our general objective was to model the relationship between ECAP threshold and T/C-levels by taking into account their relative changes within each subject. In particular, we were interested in investigating further the validity of ECAP threshold as a predictor of psychophysical levels, depending on intra-cochlear electrode location and time of testing (from 1 to 18 months post-implantation).

Chirality in the new generation of antidepressants: stereoselective analysis of the enantiomers of mirtazapine, N-demethylmirtazapine, and 8-hydroxymirtazapine by LC-MS.

Mirtazapine is an antidepressant that acts specifically on noradrenergic and sertonergic receptors. A LC-MS method was developed that allows the simultaneous analysis of the R-(-)- and S-(+)-enantiomers of mirtazapine (MIR), demethylmirtazapine (DMIR), and 8-hydroxymirtazapine (8-OH-MIR) in plasma of MIR-treated patients. The method involves a 3-step liquid-liquid extraction, an HPLC separation on a Chirobiotic V column, and MS detection in electrospray mode.

Speech perception and speech intelligibility in children after cochlear implantation.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the long-term speech perception and speech intelligibility of congenitally and prelingually deaf children after cochlear implantation. It was a longitudinal study following 63 congenitally or prelingually deaf children up to 5 years after implantation. They each received a nucleus multichannel cochlear implant before they were 10 years old.

[Use of auditory brain stem implant in a patient with bilateral vestibular schwannoma (type 2 neurofibromatosis].

Surgical technique and functional results of implantation of the acoustic implant of the brain stem (BS) are described for a 16-year-old patient with bilateral vestibular shvannoma (neurofibromatosis of type 2). Initially, a large (IV degree) tumor was removed from the left cerebellopontile angle using the translabyrinthine-transcochlear approach. The function of the facial nerve recovered completely.

Cochlear implantation in prelingually deafened children with residual hearing.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the speech perception skills of prelingually deafened French children with preoperative residual hearing who received multichannel cochlear implants.

Design: The design of the study incorporated a within-subject, repeated measures design for assessing speech perception skills.

Setting: Montpellier, Toulouse and Lyon Pediatric Cochlear Implant Centers.

Steady state plasma levels of the enantiomers of trimipramine and of its metabolites in CYP2D6-, CYP2C19- and CYP3A4/5-phenotyped patients.

Steady state plasma concentrations of the (L)- and (D)-enantiomers of trimipramine (TRI), desmethyltrimipramine (DTRI), 2-hydroxytrimipramine (TRIOH) and 2-hydroxydesmethyl-trimipramine (DTRIOH) were measured in 27 patients receiving between 300 and 400 mg/day racemic TRI. The patients were phenotyped with dextromethorphan and mephenytoin, and the 8-hour urinary ratios of dextromethorphan/dextrorphan, dextromethorphan/3-methoxymorphinan, and (S)-mephenytoin/(R)mephenytoin were used as markers of cytochrome P-450IID6 (CYP2D6), CYP3A4/5 and CYP2C19 activities, respectively. One patient was a CYP2D6 and one was a CYP2C19 poor metabolizer.

[Development of different linguistic systems in children with a cochlear implant].

The authors have studied a population of 21 pre-lingually deaf children equipped with a cochlear implant for at least 24 months. Their linguistic progression after implantation has been compared with the standard language development in normally hearing children, using a model published by Marie Therese Le Normand in 1996. 3 types of development can be distinguished: Profile 1 (shown by 9 children) in which language development after implantation is rapid and homogeneous: profile 2 (shown by 8 children), in which it is slower and more heterogeneous, with a longer pre-linguistic phase; Profile 3 (shown by 3 children) in which there are diverse problems with development.

Simultaneous determination of human plasma levels of citalopram, paroxetine, sertraline, and their metabolites by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

A gas chromatography-mass spectrometry method is presented which allows the simultaneous determination of the plasma concentrations of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors citalopram, paroxetine, sertraline, and their pharmacologically active N-demethylated metabolites (desmethylcitalopram, didesmethylcitalopram, and desmethylsertraline) after derivatization with the reagent N-methyl-bis(trifluoroacetamide). No interferences from endogenous compounds are observed following the extraction of plasma samples from six different human subjects. The standard curves are linear over a working range of 10-500 ng/mL for citalopram, 10-300 ng/mL for desmethylcitalopram, 5-60 ng/mL for didesmethylcitalopram, 20-400 ng/mL for sertraline and desmethylsertraline, and 10-200 ng/mL for paroxetine.

Selection criteria for cochlear implants in children.

Objective: To determine the selection criteria for cochlear implantation in children.

Setting: Hospital pediatric implant center.

Patients And Interventions: Selection of patients depends on medical evaluation, audiometric data, speech discrimination, communication skills, cognitive skills, and psychosocial factors.

[General principles of conception of cochlear implants].

Cochlear implants have greatly been developed on last ten years. Their diversity makes their use and choice more complex. The authors expose simply the physiopathology of the implanted auditory system and basic principles of cochlear implants.