Using Brain Measurements to Understand Cochlear Implant Outcomes -V0.3
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Comparing Electrophysiological Brain Measurements of Electrode Function to Speech Perception in Adult Cochlear Implant Users
IRAS ID
265485
Contact name
Deborah A Vickers
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
'Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust & the University of Camabridge
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
For people with insufficient hearing to effectively use hearing aids, cochlear implants can provide great benefit, although they do not restore normal hearing. Cochlear implants stimulate the hearing nerve directly with electrical currents from a set of electrodes surgically implanted into the inner ear (cochlea). Although cochlear implants are a great success, a wide range in speech perception outcomes are observed.
The aim of this programme of research is to reduce the variability in performance as well as increasing the levels of speech recognition achieved by all. We propose to achieve this by using a special objective measure to record brain activity in response to sound for cochlear implant users. This technique is called electro-encephalology (EEG) and is used routinely in clinical practice and involves wearing a special hat containing recording contacts to make the measurements. By understanding the relationship between these responses to different sounds and speech understanding it will help us understand how cochlear implant users are listening to different cues in speech and what aspects limit these abilities. These measures will ultimately allow us to observe the brain changes that take place once cochlear implants are switched on and also to guide cochlear implant fitting approaches.
This research project explores preliminary measures and it is fulfils one objective in a larger programme of research funded by the Medical Research Council. In this phase of the research we will be looking at the brain responses in cochlear implant users to different types of sounds to understand what they tell us about how the electrodes are working on the cochlear implant. The electrodes sit along the length of the implanted part of the cochlear implant and they are responsible for sending sound information directly to the hearing nerve. These objective brain measurements will be compared to ‘behavioural’ discrimination tasks using the same stimuli so that we can ensure the objective measures are direct measures of a perceptual skill. In a behavioural task the listener responds to the sounds that they hear whereas in an objective task the listener just has to remain awake and does not need to make a response. We will compare both the objective and behavioural results to the speech perception scores of an individual and look at how adjusting the sounds affects perception when listening with electrodes that we consider to be ‘good’ compared to those that we consider to be ‘bad’ based on our objective and behavioural measures.REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/NE/0366
Date of REC Opinion
11 Dec 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion