Cochlear Implant Electrode Array Design and Speech Understanding.

Objective: Cochlear implant electrode arrays are categorized based on their design as lateral wall (LW) and perimodiolar (PM) electrode arrays. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of LW versus PM designs on postoperative speech perception across multiple manufacturers and over long follow-up durations.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Cochlear implantation in unilateral hearing loss: impact of short- to medium-term auditory deprivation.

Introduction: Single sided deafness (SSD) results in profound cortical reorganization that presents clinically with a significant impact on sound localization and speech comprehension. Cochlear implantation (CI) has been approved for two manufacturers' devices in the United States to restore bilateral function in SSD patients with up to 10 years of auditory deprivation. However, there is great variability in auditory performance and it remains unclear how auditory deprivation affects CI benefits within this 10-year window.

Longitudinal Auditory Benefit for Elderly Patients After Cochlear Implant for Bilateral Hearing Loss, Including Those Meeting Expanded Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Criteria.

Objective: To examine the effect of patient age on longitudinal speech understanding outcomes after cochlear implantation (CI) in bilateral hearing loss.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: Tertiary academic center.

Are Speech Perception Scores in Cochlear Implant Recipients Consistent Across Different Tests?

Objective: Cochlear implant (CI) candidacy and postoperative outcomes are assessed using sets of speech perception tests that vary from center to center, limiting comparisons across institutions and time periods. The objective of this study was to determine if scores on one speech perception test could be reliably predicted from scores on another test.

Study Design: Arizona Biomedical (AzBio) Sentence Test, Consonant-Nucleus-Consonant word (CNCw), and Hearing in Noise Test (HINT) scores in quiet for the implanted ear were collected for individuals who received a CI between 1985 and 2019.

Flat-Panel CT Imaging for Individualized Pitch Mapping in Cochlear Implant Users.

Objective: This study aims to identify electrode contact location and to assess frequency deviation between predicted and actual frequency allocation maps in cochlear implant (CI) users.

Study Design And Methods: This is a retrospective clinical study. Flat-panel computed tomography (FPCT) scans were collected for 17 CI users.

Deeper Cochlear Implant Electrode Insertion Angle Improves Detection of Musical Sound Quality Deterioration Related to Bass Frequency Removal.

Background: Cochlear implant (CI) electrode arrays typically do not reach the most apical regions of the cochlea that intrinsically encode low frequencies. This may contribute to diminished implant-mediated musical sound quality perception. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of varying degrees of apical cochlear stimulation (measured by angular insertion depth) on musical sound quality discrimination.

Use of the Phantom Electrode strategy to improve bass frequency perception for music listening in cochlear implant users.

Objectives: The Phantom Electrode strategy makes use of partial bipolar stimulation on the two most apical electrodes in an effort to extend the frequency range available to cochlear implant (CI) users. This study aimed to quantify the effect of the Phantom Electrode strategy on bass frequency perception in music listening in CI users.

Methods: Eleven adult Advanced Bionics users with the Fidelity 120 processing strategy and 16 adult normal hearing (NH) individuals participated in the study.

Cochlear implant users rely on tempo rather than on pitch information during perception of musical emotion.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which cochlear implant (CI) users rely on tempo and mode in perception of musical emotion when compared with normal hearing (NH) individuals.

Methods: A test battery of novel four-bar melodies was created and adapted to four permutations with alterations of tonality (major vs. minor) and tempo (presto vs.

Reverberation negatively impacts musical sound quality for cochlear implant users.

Objective: Satisfactory musical sound quality remains a challenge for many cochlear implant (CI) users. In particular, questionnaires completed by CI users suggest that reverberation due to room acoustics can negatively impact their music listening experience. The objective of this study was to more specifically characterize of the effect of reverberation on musical sound quality in CI users, normal hearing (NH) non-musicians, and NH musicians using a previously designed assessment method, called Cochlear Implant-MUltiple Stimulus with Hidden Reference and Anchor (CI-MUSHRA).

Musical Sound Quality in Cochlear Implant Users: A Comparison in Bass Frequency Perception Between Fine Structure Processing and High-Definition Continuous Interleaved Sampling Strategies.

Objectives: Med-El cochlear implant (CI) patients are typically programmed with either the fine structure processing (FSP) or high-definition continuous interleaved sampling (HDCIS) strategy. FSP is the newer-generation strategy and aims to provide more direct encoding of fine structure information compared with HDCIS. Since fine structure information is extremely important in music listening, FSP may offer improvements in musical sound quality for CI users.

Evaluation of a Test Battery to Assess Perception of Music in Children With Cochlear Implants.

Importance: A number of studies have investigated music perception in adult cochlear implant (CI) users. However, little is known about how pediatric CI users perceive and process music, in part because suitable methods for assessing music perception in this population are lacking. Therefore, we developed the Music in Children With Cochlear Implants (MCCI) battery to assess music perception in pediatric CI users younger than 9 years.

Perception of pure tones and iterated rippled noise for normal hearing and cochlear implant users.

Cochlear Implant (CI) users typically perform poorly on musical tasks, especially those based on pitch ranking and melody recognition. It was hypothesized that CI users would demonstrate deterioration in performance for a pitch ranking and a melody recognition task presented with iterated rippled noise (IRN) in comparison to pure tones (PT). In Addition, it was hypothesized that normal hearing (NH) listeners would show fewer differences in performance between IRN and PT for these two tasks.

Musical sound quality impairments in cochlear implant (CI) users as a function of limited high-frequency perception.

The purpose of this study was to (a) apply the musical sound quality assessment method, Cochlear Implant-MUltiple Stimulus with Hidden Reference and Anchor (CI-MUSHRA), to quantify musical sound quality deficits in CI (cochlear implant) users with respect to high-frequency loss, and (b) assess possible correlations between CI-MUSHRA performance and self-reported musical sound quality, as assessed by more traditional rating scales. Five versions of real-world musical stimuli were created: 8-,4-, and 2-kHz low-pass-filtered (LPF) versions with increasing high-frequency removal, a composite stimulus containing a 1-kHz LPF-filtered version and white noise ("anchor"), and an unaltered version ("hidden reference"). Using the CI-MUSHRA methodology, these versions were simultaneously presented to participants in addition to a labeled reference.

Assessment of sound quality perception in cochlear implant users during music listening.

Background: Although cochlear implant (CI) users frequently report deterioration of sound quality when listening to music, few methods exist to quantify these subjective claims.

Objective: 1) To design a novel research method for quantifying sound quality perception in CI users during music listening; 2) To validate this method by assessing one attribute of music perception, bass frequency perception, which is hypothesized to be relevant to overall musical sound quality perception.

Hypothesis: Limitations in bass frequency perception contribute to CI-mediated sound quality deteriorations.

Perceived hearing status and attitudes toward noise in young adults.

Purpose: To estimate the prevalence of perceived hearing loss, tinnitus, and temporary threshold shift (TTS) in community college students and to see whether those students' attitudes toward noise affected their perception of their own possible hearing loss, tinnitus, and TTS.

Method: Young adults (N = 245; age 18-27) completed 3 questionnaires: the Hearing Symptom Description, Youth Attitude to Noise Scale, and Adolescents' Habits and Hearing Protection Use.

Results: Perceived TTS and pain associated with loud noise were the most common hearing related factors, followed by perceived tinnitus and hearing loss.

Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae meningitis complicated by hearing loss in a 9-year-old HIV-infected boy.

A 9-year old boy with perinatal HIV infection developed meningitis due to nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae. His course was complicated by progressive hearing loss due to labyrinthitis ossificans. Placement of cochlear implant improved hearing thresholds.