Lorens Artur, Obrycka Anita, Skarzynski Piotr Henryk, Skarzynski Henryk
World Hearing Center, Implant and Auditory Perception Department, Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing, 02-042 Warsaw, Poland.
World Hearing Center, Teleaudiology and Screening Examination Department, Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing, 02-042 Warsaw, Poland.
Life (Basel). 2021 Mar 23;11(3):265. doi: 10.3390/life11030265.
The purpose of the study is to gauge the benefits of binaural integration effects (redundancy and squelch) due to preserved low-frequency residual hearing in the implanted ear of cochlear implant users with single-sided deafness. There were 11 cochlear implant users (age 18-61 years old) who had preserved low-frequency hearing in the implanted ear; they had a normal hearing or mild hearing loss in the contralateral ear. Patients were tested with monosyllabic words, under different spatial locations of speech and noise and with the cochlear implant activated and deactivated, in two listening configurations-one in which low frequencies in the implanted ear were masked and another in which they were unmasked. We also investigated how cochlear implant benefit due to binaural integration depended on unaided sound localization ability. Patients benefited from the binaural integration effects of redundancy and squelch only in the unmasked condition. Pearson correlations between binaural integration effects and unaided sound localization error showed significance only for squelch ( = -0.67; = 0.02). Hearing preservation after cochlear implantation has considerable benefits because the preserved low-frequency hearing in the implanted ear contributes to binaural integration, presumably through the preserved temporal fine structure.
本研究的目的是评估双耳整合效应（冗余和静噪）的益处，该效应源于单侧耳聋的人工耳蜗使用者植入耳中保留的低频残余听力。有11名人工耳蜗使用者（年龄在18至61岁之间），其植入耳保留了低频听力；他们对侧耳听力正常或轻度听力损失。在两种听力配置下，对患者进行单音节词测试，测试时语音和噪声处于不同空间位置，且人工耳蜗处于激活和未激活状态——一种配置是植入耳中的低频被掩蔽，另一种配置是低频未被掩蔽。我们还研究了双耳整合带来的人工耳蜗益处如何依赖于无助听声音定位能力。患者仅在未掩蔽条件下受益于冗余和静噪的双耳整合效应。双耳整合效应与无助听声音定位误差之间的皮尔逊相关性仅在静噪方面显示出显著性（ = -0.67； = 0.02）。人工耳蜗植入后保留听力有相当大的益处，因为植入耳中保留的低频听力可能通过保留的时间精细结构有助于双耳整合。
