Neuro-rehabilitation Approach for Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss.

Sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSHL) is characterized by acute, idiopathic hearing loss. The estimated incidence rate is 5-30 cases per 100,000 people per year. The causes of SSHL and the mechanisms underlying SSHL currently remain unknown.

Constraint-induced sound therapy for sudden sensorineural hearing loss--behavioral and neurophysiological outcomes.

Sudden sensorineural hearing loss is characterized by acute, idiopathic hearing deterioration. We report here the development and evaluation of "constraint-induced sound therapy", which is based on a well-established neuro-rehabilitation approach, and which is characterized by the plugging of the intact ear ("constraint") and the simultaneous, extensive stimulation of the affected ear with music. The sudden sensorineural hearing loss patients who received the constraint-induced sound therapy in addition to the standard corticosteroid therapy showed significantly better recovery of hearing function compared to those who had only received corticosteroid treatments.

Involuntary monitoring of sound signals in noise is reflected in the human auditory evoked N1m response.

Constant sound sequencing as operationalized by repeated stimulation with tones of the same frequency has multiple effects. On the one hand, it activates mechanisms of habituation and refractoriness, which are reflected in the decrease of response amplitude of evoked responses. On the other hand, the constant sequencing acts as spectral cueing, resulting in tones being detected faster and more accurately.

Bottom-up driven involuntary attention modulates auditory signal in noise processing.

Background: Auditory evoked responses can be modulated by both the sequencing and the signal-to-noise ratio of auditory stimuli. Constant sequencing as well as intense masking sounds basically lead to N1m response amplitude reduction. However, the interaction between these two factors has not been investigated so far.

Non-native phonemes in adult word learning: evidence from the N400m.

Newborns are equipped with a large phonemic inventory that becomes tuned to one's native language early in life. We review and add new data about how learning of a non-native phoneme can be accomplished in adults and how the efficiency of word learning can be assessed by neurophysiological measures. For this purpose, we studied the acquisition of the voiceless, bilabial fricative /Phi/ via a statistical-learning paradigm.

Bottom-up driven involuntary auditory evoked field change: constant sound sequencing amplifies but does not sharpen neural activity.

The capability of involuntarily tracking certain sound signals during the simultaneous presence of noise is essential in human daily life. Previous studies have demonstrated that top-down auditory focused attention can enhance excitatory and inhibitory neural activity, resulting in sharpening of frequency tuning of auditory neurons. In the present study, we investigated bottom-up driven involuntary neural processing of sound signals in noisy environments by means of magnetoencephalography.

Implicit and explicit categorization of speech sounds--dissociating behavioural and neurophysiological data.

During speech perception, sound is mapped onto abstract phonological categories. Assimilation of place or manner of articulation in connected speech challenges this categorization. Does assimilation result in categorizations that need to be corrected later on, or does the system get it right immediately? Participants were presented with isolated nasals (/m/ labial, /n/ alveolar, and /n'/ assimilated towards labial place of articulation), extracted from naturally produced German utterances.