Ear Institute, University College London, London, UK; Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
Trends Neurosci. 2018 Apr;41(4):174-185. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2018.01.008. Epub 2018 Feb 12.
Hearing loss is a widespread condition that is linked to declines in quality of life and mental health. Hearing aids remain the treatment of choice, but, unfortunately, even state-of-the-art devices provide only limited benefit for the perception of speech in noisy environments. While traditionally viewed primarily as a loss of sensitivity, hearing loss is also known to cause complex distortions of sound-evoked neural activity that cannot be corrected by amplification alone. This Opinion article describes the effects of hearing loss on neural activity to illustrate the reasons why current hearing aids are insufficient and to motivate the use of new technologies to explore directions for improving the next generation of devices.
听力损失是一种普遍存在的状况，它与生活质量和心理健康的下降有关。助听器仍然是首选的治疗方法，但不幸的是，即使是最先进的设备，在嘈杂环境中对言语感知的改善也非常有限。虽然传统上主要将听力损失视为敏感性的丧失，但也知道听力损失会导致声音诱发的神经活动的复杂失真，仅通过放大无法纠正。本文观点描述了听力损失对神经活动的影响，以说明为什么当前的助听器不够充分，并激励使用新技术探索改善下一代设备的方向。
