Effects of Sensorineural Hearing Loss on Robust Speech Coding

感音神经性听力损失对鲁棒语音编码的影响

• 批准号: 8304356
• 负责人: Michael G Heinz
• 金额: $ 39.45万
• 依托单位: PURDUE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-18 至 2014-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8304356
• 关键词: Acoustic Nerve; Acoustics; Address; Affect; Anatomy; Animals; Audiometry; Auditory Threshold; Carboplatin; Case Mixes; Characteristics; Chinchilla (genus); Clinical; Cochlea; Cochlear Implants; Code; Complex; Cues; Data; Development; Diagnosis; Diagnostic; Fiber; Frequencies; Functional disorder; Goals; Hair Cells; Hearing; Hearing Aids; Human; Individual; Individual Differences; Inner Hair Cells; Kanamycin; Knowledge; Labyrinth; Lead; Lesion; Measures; Methods; Modeling; Nerve Fibers; Noise; Noise-Induced Hearing Loss; Outer Hair Cells; Output; Patient observation; Patients; Peripheral; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Phase; Physiological; Physiology; Procedures; Psychophysiology; Rehabilitation therapy; Research; Role; Sensorineural Hearing Loss; Speech; Speech Perception; Stimulus; Structure; Testing; Travel; Voice; Work; base; cell injury; data modeling; hearing impairment; improved; innovation; neurophysiology; novel; otoacoustic emission; public health relevance; relating to nervous system; research study; response; sound; spatiotemporal; speech recognition; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A great challenge in diagnosing and treating hearing impairment comes from the fact that people with similar degrees of hearing loss may have different speech recognition abilities. Previous research has established that common forms of hearing loss arise from a mixture of inner- and outer-hair-cell damage. A conceptual framework that inner and outer hair cells contribute to hearing in fundamentally different ways motivates the general hypothesis that differences in the degree of inner- and outer-hair-cell dysfunction contribute to across-patient variability in speech perception. Recent psychophysical studies have suggested that listeners with sensorineural hearing loss have a reduced ability to use temporal fine-structure cues in speech perception. These studies have fueled an active debate about the role of temporal coding in normal and impaired hearing, and may have important implications for improving the ability of hearing aids and cochlear implants to restore speech perception in noise. The proposed neurophysiological experiments will provide valuable data by directly quantifying the effects of sensorineural loss on temporal coding in the auditory nerve. The effects of selective inner- or outer-hair-cell damage will be studied using ototoxic drugs. Noise-induced hearing loss will be used to study the more common case of mixed hair-cell damage. Histopathological analyses and functional response measures will be used to characterize hair-cell lesions in individual animals. Specific Aim 1 is to quantify the effects of selective hair-cell damage on within- and across-fiber temporal coding. Innovative analyses that avoid previous experimental limitations in the study of across-fiber temporal coding will be used to quantify fine-structure and envelope coding, as well as traveling-wave delays. Preliminary data support our hypothesis that sensorineural loss affects across-fiber coding of fine-structure more than within-fiber coding. Specific Aim 2 is to determine whether sensorineural loss affects neural coding of fine-structure and envelope cues in vocoded speech. Differences in the ability to understand vocoded speech between listeners with normal and impaired hearing have been used to suggest a perceptual deficit in the use of TFS cues. The physiological basis for these perceptual results is difficult to evaluate because narrowband cochlear filtering limits the ability to isolate fine-structure and envelope at the output of the cochlea. Neural cross-correlation coefficients will quantify directly the effects of sensorineural loss on the fidelity of fine-structure and envelope coding for vocoded speech in noise. Modeling supports the hypothesis that significant degradations occur in both fine-structure and envelope responses. Specific Aim 3 is to quantify the effects of sensorineural loss on temporal coding of fundamental frequency in concurrent complex tones. Listeners with hearing loss show a reduced ability to make use of voice-pitch differences to segregate two competing talkers. It is hypothesized that the ability to estimate the fundamental frequencies of two concurrent complex tones is degraded primarily due to the loss of temporal fine structure, rather than from degraded envelope coding of unresolved harmonics. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The long-term goal of the proposed work is to obtain a better understanding of the physiological bases for robust speech perception, which has important theoretical and clinical implications. The data collected in the proposed experiments will provide fundamental knowledge about the differential effects of inner ear damage on the neural coding of perceptually relevant sounds. This knowledge will benefit the development of diagnostic and rehabilitative strategies to improve the daily lives of people with hearing loss.

描述（由申请人提供）：诊断和治疗听力障碍的巨大挑战来自于听力损失程度相似的人可能具有不同的语音识别能力。先前的研究表明，听力损失的常见形式是由内部和外发细胞损伤的混合物引起的。内部和外毛细胞以根本不同的方式促进听力的概念框架激发了一个普遍的假设，即内部和外发性功能障碍程度的差异有助于语音感知的跨门变异性。最近的心理学研究表明，具有感觉性听力损失的听众在语音感知中使用时间良好结构提示的能力降低。这些研究激发了关于时间编码在正常和听力受损中的作用的积极辩论，并且可能对提高助听器和耳蜗植入物恢复噪声中语音感知的能力具有重要意义。所提出的神经生理实验将通过直接量化感觉神经性损失对听觉神经的时间编码的影响来提供有价值的数据。选择性内部或外发细胞损伤的影响将使用耳毒性药物进行研究。噪声引起的听力损失将用于研究混合电池损伤的更常见的情况。组织病理学分析和功能反应措施将用于表征单个动物的发胶病变。具体目的1是量化选择性发型损伤对内纤维内部编码的影响。在跨纤维时间编码研究中避免了以前的实验限制的创新分析将用于量化精细结构和包络编码以及旅行波延迟。初步数据支持我们的假设，即感觉到损失对精细结构的跨纤维编码比纤维内编码更大。具体目的2是确定感官损失是否会影响辅助语音中精细结构和信封提示的神经编码。理解正常听力和听力受损的听众之间的声音语音能力的差异已被用来表明使用TFS提示的感知缺陷。这些感知结果的生理基础很难评估，因为窄带耳蜗过滤限制了在耳蜗输出处分离精细结构和包络的能力。神经互相关系数将直接量化感觉神经性丧失对噪声中验证语音的良好结构和包络编码的忠诚度的影响。建模支持以下假设：在精细结构和包膜响应中都发生了重大降解。具体目的3是量化感官性损失对并发复合音中基本频率时间编码的影响。听力损失的听众表明，使用语音差异的能力降低了，以分离两个相互竞争的谈话者。假设估计两个并发复合音调的基本频率的能力主要是由于时间精细结构的丧失，而不是由于未解决的谐波的降级包络编码。 公共卫生相关性：拟议工作的长期目标是更好地了解强大语音感知的生理基础，这具有重要的理论和临床意义。在拟议的实验中收集的数据将提供有关内耳损害对感知相关声音神经编码的差异影响的基本知识。这些知识将有助于发展诊断和康复策略，以改善听力损失的人的日常生活。