Relationship between speech-evoked neural responses and perception of speech in noise in older adults.

Speech-in-noise (SPIN) perception involves neural encoding of temporal acoustic cues. Cues include temporal fine structure (TFS) and envelopes that modulate at syllable (Slow-rate ENV) and fundamental frequency (F-rate ENV) rates. Here the relationship between speech-evoked neural responses to these cues and SPIN perception was investigated in older adults. Theta-band phase-locking values (PLVs) that reflect cortical sensitivity to Slow-rate ENV and peripheral/brainstem frequency-following responses phase-locked to F-rate ENV (FFR) and TFS (FFR) were measured from scalp-electroencephalography responses to a repeated speech syllable in steady-state speech-shaped noise (SpN) and 16-speaker babble noise (BbN). The results showed that (1) SPIN performance and PLVs were significantly higher under SpN than BbN, implying differential cortical encoding may serve as the neural mechanism of SPIN performance that varies as a function of noise types; (2) PLVs and FFR at resolved harmonics were significantly related to good SPIN performance, supporting the importance of phase-locked neural encoding of Slow-rate ENV and TFS of resolved harmonics during SPIN perception; (3) FFR was not associated to SPIN performance until audiometric threshold was controlled for, indicating that hearing loss should be carefully controlled when studying the role of neural encoding of F-rate ENV. Implications are drawn with respect to fitting auditory prostheses.