Ear and Hearing最新文献

{"title":"Wearing Hearing Protection Makes Me Worse at My Job: Impacts of Hearing Protection Use on Sensorimotor Tracking Performance.","authors":"Matthew G Wisniewski, C Shane Chuwonganant","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001630","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Occupational hearing loss is a significant problem worldwide despite the fact that it can be mitigated by the wearing of hearing protection devices (HPDs). When surveyed, workers frequently report that worsened work performance while wearing HPDs is one reason why they choose not to wear them. However, there have been few studies to supplement these subjective reports with objective measures. Where they do exist, assessed performance measures have mostly characterized auditory situational awareness in gross terms (e.g., average speech comprehension scores over an entire session). The temporal dynamics of performance and HPD impacts on nonauditory aspects of work performance are largely unknown. In the present study, we aimed to fill this gap in the literature by measuring how HPD usage impacted sensorimotor tracking performance in relation to ongoing auditory events.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>In two experiments, listeners heard commands sourced from the coordinate response measure (CRM) corpus (i.e., sentences of the form \"Ready <call sign> go to <color> <number> now\"). These commands informed listeners of which of nine moving on-screen objects to track with a computer mouse (e.g., \"blue four\" refers the listener to a blue square). The commands were presented in background street noise and were heard under either \"No HPD\" or \"HPD\" conditions. In experiment 1, HPD wearing was simulated with a digital filter designed to mimic the attenuation profile of a passive HPD. In experiment 2, actual HPDs were worn by listeners. Continuous recording of tracking error allowed us to simultaneously examine how HPD wearing impacted speech comprehension, the accuracy of tracking, and how tracking accuracy varied as a function of time on task and ongoing auditory events (e.g., the presentation of a critical CRM sentence).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In both experiments, listeners spent less time tracking the correct object in the HPD condition. After trimming data to those time points in which the target object was known, worse performance was exhibited by the HPD condition than the No HPD condition. In the examination of the temporal dynamics of tracking error, it was apparent that differences arose strongly during the presentation of CRM sentences.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Workers' complaints of poorer performance while wearing HPDs are justified and extend beyond just diminished auditory situational awareness. The negative impact on nonauditory aspects of work performance may be strongest around critical listening periods. Addressing these aspects of performance will be an important part of addressing HPD nonuse in occupational settings.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143029625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Machine Learning-Based Diagnosis of Chronic Subjective Tinnitus With Altered Cognitive Function: An Event-Related Potential Study.","authors":"Jihoo Kim, Kang Hyeon Lim, Euijin Kim, Seunghu Kim, Hong Jin Kim, Ye Hwan Lee, Sungkean Kim, June Choi","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001623","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001623","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Objectives: &lt;/strong&gt;Due to the absence of objective diagnostic criteria, tinnitus diagnosis primarily relies on subjective assessments. However, its neuropathological features can be objectively quantified using electroencephalography (EEG). Despite the existing research, the pathophysiology of tinnitus remains unclear. The objective of this study was to gain a deeper comprehension of the neural mechanisms underlying tinnitus through the comparison of cognitive event-related potentials in patients with tinnitus and healthy controls (HCs). Furthermore, we explored the potential of EEG-derived features as biomarkers for tinnitus using machine learning techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Design: &lt;/strong&gt;Forty-eight participants (24 patients with tinnitus and 24 HCs) underwent comprehensive audiological assessments and EEG recordings. We extracted N2 and P3 components of the midline electrodes using an auditory oddball paradigm, to explore the relationship between tinnitus and cognitive function. In addition, the current source density for N2- and P3-related regions of interest was computed. A linear support vector machine classifier was used to distinguish patients with tinnitus from HCs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results: &lt;/strong&gt;The P3 peak amplitudes were significantly diminished in patients with tinnitus at the AFz, Fz, Cz, and Pz electrodes, whereas the N2 peak latencies were significantly delayed at Cz electrode. Source analysis revealed notably reduced N2 activities in bilateral fusiform gyrus, bilateral cuneus, bilateral temporal gyrus, and bilateral insula of patients with tinnitus. Correlation analysis revealed significant associations between the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-Depression scores and N2 source activities at left insula, right insula, and left inferior temporal gyrus. The best classification performance showed a validation accuracy of 85.42%, validation sensitivity of 87.50%, and validation specificity of 83.33% in distinguishing between patients with tinnitus and HCs by using a total of 18 features in both sensor- and source-level.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions: &lt;/strong&gt;This study demonstrated that patients with tinnitus exhibited significantly altered neural processing during the cognitive-related oddball paradigm, including lower P3 amplitudes, delayed N2 latency, and reduced source activities in specific brain regions in cognitive-related oddball paradigm. The correlations between N2 source activities and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-Depression scores suggest a potential link between the physiological symptoms of tinnitus and their neural impact on patients with tinnitus. Such findings underscore the potential diagnostic relevance of N2- and P3-related features in tinnitus, while also highlighting the interplay between the temporal lobe and occipital lobe in tinnitus. Furthermore, the application of machine learning techniques has shown reliable results in distinguishing tinnitus patients from HCs, reinforcing the v","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143016830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sleep-Associated Traits and Hearing Difficulties in Noise: A Bidirectional Mendelian Randomization Study.","authors":"Chunyan Liu, Xiaonan Wu, Jin Li, Shan Song, Jing Guan, Qiuju Wang","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001625","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001625","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>The aim of this study was to investigate the causal relationships between sleep-associated traits and hearing difficulties in noise (HDinN) by Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>Single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with chronotype, insomnia, sleep duration, daytime dozing or sleeping, and ease of getting up in the morning were extracted from European population genome-wide association study pooled data for bidirectional MR analysis. The MR-Egger regression, the inverse variance weighted technique, and the weighted median method were used for data analysis. The study was then expanded to include South Asian, East Asian, African, and Greater Middle Eastern populations.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>MR analysis indicated that in European populations, ease of getting up in the morning is a protective factor for HDinN (odds ratio [OR] = 0.932, p = 4.22 × 10-5, pFDR = 5.62 × 10-4), while shorter sleep duration was a risk factor (undersleepers: OR = 1.164, p = 0.002, pFDR = 0.014). In addition, there was an indicative causal association between daytime dozing and HDinN (OR = 1.089, p = 0.046, pFDR = 0.123). The conclusions were consistent in African populations (ease of getting up: OR = 0.696, p = 0.012, pFDR = 0.041, sleep duration: OR = 0.677, p = 0.032 pFDR = 0.091, daytime dozing: OR = 1.164, p = 0.002, pFDR = 0.014). In the reverse direction, there was a significant causal association between HDinN and both chronotype (OR = 1.413, p = 0.011, pFDR = 0.042) and ease of getting up in the morning (OR = 0.668, p = 1.75 × 10-5, pFDR = 3.49 × 10-4) in European populations, with similar conclusions respectively reached in East Asian (OR = 1.085, p = 0.010, pFDR = 0.045) and African populations (OR = 0.936, p = 0.002, pFDR = 0.012). Furthermore, although not observed in European populations, exploratory studies in non-European populations suggested a potential association between insomnia and HDinN (East Asian: OR = 1.920, p = 0.011, pFDR = 0.043, African: OR = 2.080, p = 0.004, pFDR = 0.019, South Asian: OR = 1.981, p = 1.59 × 10-4, PFDR = 0.002, Greater Middle Eastern: OR = 2.394, p = 0.002, pFDR = 0.012), and vice versa (Greater Middle Eastern: OR = 1.056, p = 0.014, pFDR = 0.044).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study identified a potential bidirectional causal relationship between sleep-associated traits and HDinN. However, the underlying mechanisms of the causal relationships reported here have yet to be elucidated.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143016833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Benefits of Cochlear Implantation and Hearing Preservation for Children With Preoperative Functional Hearing: A Prospective Clinical Trial.","authors":"Lisa R Park, Margaret E Richter, Erika B Gagnon, Shannon R Culbertson, Lillian W Henderson, Margaret T Dillon","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001636","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001636","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>This study was designed to (1) compare preactivation and postactivation performance with a cochlear implant for children with functional preoperative low-frequency hearing, (2) compare outcomes of electric-acoustic stimulation (EAS) versus electric-only stimulation (ES) for children with versus without hearing preservation to understand the benefits of low-frequency acoustic cues, and (3) to investigate the relationship between postoperative acoustic hearing thresholds and performance.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>This was a prospective, 12-month between-subjects trial including 24 pediatric cochlear implant recipients with preoperative low-frequency functional hearing. Participant ages ranged from 5 to 17 years old. They were recruited at their device activation and fit with EAS or ES based on their postoperative thresholds. Group outcomes were compared for single-word recognition, masked sentence recognition, perceived hearing abilities, speech production, receptive language, expressive language, and prosodic identification.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Children experienced improvements in word recognition, subjective hearing, speech production, and expressive language with EAS or ES as compared with their preoperative abilities. Children using EAS performed better on a prosodic identification task and had higher subjective hearing scores postactivation as compared with children using ES. There was a significant relationship between postoperative thresholds at 125 Hz and prosodic identification.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The results of this study support cochlear implantation for children with normal-to-moderate low-frequency hearing thresholds and severe-to-profound high-frequency hearing loss. They also highlight the benefits of postoperative hearing preservation for language development.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143016829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Auditory Environment at Early Intervention Groups for Young Children With Hearing Loss: Signal to Noise Ratio, Background Noise, and Reverberation.","authors":"Annerenée Meijer, Michel Ruben Benard, Aart Woonink, Deniz Başkent, Evelien Dirks","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001627","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001627","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>One important aspect in facilitating language access for children with hearing loss (HL) is the auditory environment. An optimal auditory environment is characterized by high signal to noise ratios (SNRs), low background noise levels, and low reverberation times. In this study, the authors describe the auditory environment of early intervention groups specifically equipped for young children with HL.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>Seven early intervention groups for children with HL were included in the study. A total of 26 young children (22 to 46 months) visiting those groups participated. Language Environmental Analysis recorders were used to record all sounds around a child during one group visit. The recordings were analyzed to estimate SNR levels and background noise levels during the intervention groups. The unoccupied noise levels and reverberation times were measured in the unoccupied room either directly before or after the group visit.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The average SNR encountered by the children in the intervention groups was +13 dB SNR. The detected speech of the attending professionals achieved the +15 dB SNR recommended by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in approximately 42% of the time. The unoccupied noise levels were between 29 and 39 dBA, complying with acoustic norms for classroom environments (≤35 dBA, by ANSI/ASA 12.60-2010 Part 1) for six out of seven groups. Reverberation time was between 0.3 and 0.6 sec for all groups, which complies to the acoustic norms for classroom environments for children without HL (0.6 or 0.7 sec, depending on the room size), while only one group complied to the stricter norm for children with HL (0.3 sec).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The current findings show characteristics of the auditory environment of a setting that is specifically equipped and designed for groups of children with HL. Maintaining favorable SNRs seems to be the largest challenge to achieve within the constraints of an environment where young children gather, play, and learn. The results underscore the importance of staying attentive to keep spoken language accessible for children with HL in a group setting.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142959024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Predictors of Tinnitus Symptom Relief With Hearing Aids in a European Multicenter Study.","authors":"Tabea Schiele, Benjamin Boecking, Amarjargal Nyamaa, Stamatina Psatha, Stefan Schoisswohl, Jorges P Simoes, Juliane Dettling-Papargyris, Javier Aguirre, Nikos Markatos, Rilana Cima, Jose Antonio Lopez-Escamez, Veronika Vielsmeier, Dimitris Kikidis, Winfried Schlee, Berthold Langguth, Birgit Mazurek, Steven C Marcrum","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001624","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001624","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Objectives: &lt;/strong&gt;Hearing aids (HAs) are a widely accepted first-line treatment option for individuals suffering from both hearing loss and chronic tinnitus. Though HAs are highly effective at improving speech understanding, their effectiveness in ameliorating tinnitus symptoms is less clear. In recent years, several investigators have reported on attempts to predict HAs effectiveness on tinnitus symptoms using an array of variables. These included tinnitus attributes (e.g., frequency, loudness, character), audiological characteristics (e.g., degree and configuration of hearing loss), or HA signal processing parameters (e.g., gain, noise reduction processing). The aims of this study were to determine whether (1) HA usage improves tinnitus-related distress and subjective tinnitus loudness and, if so, whether (2) tinnitus frequency, degree of hearing loss, HA-use time, and the accuracy of the HA fitting influence this effect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Design: &lt;/strong&gt;Participants were recruited as part of the \"Unification of Treatments and Interventions for Tinnitus Patients (UNITI)\" study, a large multicenter randomized controlled trial conducted across five European study sites. Here, we report on the 60 participants with chronic tinnitus and mild-to-moderate hearing loss that were randomized to the HAs-only treatment arm of UNITI. HAs were programmed according to the National Acoustic Laboratories-Nonlinear 2 or Desired Sensation Level ((i/o) v.5) prescriptive formulas and the fitting was verified using in-situ verification. Subsequently, participants underwent a 12-week treatment phase. Improvements in tinnitus-related distress measured with the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and the Tinnitus Functional Index (TFI), as well as subjective tinnitus loudness (dB HL), were assessed after 6 and 12 weeks of treatment. Accuracy of the HA fitting was operationalized as the deviation of in-situ measured real ear-aided response from target real ear-aided response parameters, as specified by the respective prescriptive formula.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results: &lt;/strong&gt;Participants' HA-use time averaged 4.8 hr/d (SD 2.4 hr/d) over the 12-week treatment phase. Multilevel regression analyses revealed significant reductions of tinnitus distress scores after 6 and 12 weeks (THI: F(2,156) = 7.80, p &lt; 0.01; TFI: F(2,155) = 8.79, p &lt; 0.01) of treatment, as compared with baseline. After 6 weeks of HA usage, THI scores were decreased by 11.64 points and TFI scores by 12.80 points, on average. There was no further statistically significant reduction in tinnitus distress between 6 and 12 weeks of HA usage (THI: M = 1.75, p = 0.89; TFI: M = -1.58, p = 0.91). Contrary to expectations, none of the included factors predicted these effects. Subjective tinnitus loudness remained unchanged with treatment (M = 1.90; F(1,105) = 0.40, p = 0.53).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions: &lt;/strong&gt;HA usage is associated with reductions in tinnitus-related distress-irrespective of tinnitus attribu","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142924129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Barriers to Early Progress in Adult Cochlear Implant Outcomes.","authors":"Mathieu Marx, Marie-Laurence Laborde, Carol Algans, Marjorie Tartayre, Chris J James","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001559","DOIUrl":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001559","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Objectives: &lt;/strong&gt;Adult cochlear implant (CI) recipients obtain varying levels of speech perception from their device. Adult CI users adapt quickly to their CI if they have no peripheral \"bottom-up\" or neurocognitive \"top-down\" limiting factors. Our objective here was to understand the influence of limiting factors on the progression of sentence understanding in quiet and in noise, initially and over time. We hypothesized that the presence of limiting factors, detected using a short test battery, would predictably influence sentence recognition with practical consequences. We aimed to validate the test battery by comparing the presence of limiting factors and the success criteria of &gt;90% sentence understanding in quiet 1 month after activation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Design: &lt;/strong&gt;The study was a single-clinic, cross-sectional, retrospective design incorporating 32 adult unilateral Nucleus CI users aged 27 to 90 years (mean = 70, SD = 13.5). Postoperative outcome was assessed through sentence recognition scores in quiet and in varying signal to noise ratios at 1 day, 1 to 2 months, and up to 2 years. Our clinic's standard test battery comprises physiological and neurocognitive measures. Physiological measures included electrically evoked compound action potentials for recovery function, spread of excitation, and polarity effect. To evaluate general cognitive function, inhibition, and phonological awareness, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment screening test, the Stroop Color-Word Test, and tests 3 and 4 of the French Assessment of Reading Skills in Adults over 16 years of age, respectively were performed. Physiological scores were considered abnormal, and therefore limiting, when total neural recovery periods and polarity effects, for both apical and basal electrode positions, were &gt;1.65 SDs from the population mean. A spread of excitation of &gt;6 electrode units was also considered limiting. For the neurocognitive tests, scores poorer than 1.65 SDs from published normal population means were considered limiting.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results: &lt;/strong&gt;At 1 month, 13 out of 32 CI users scored ≥90% sentence recognition in quiet with no significant dependence on age. Subjects with no limiting peripheral or neurocognitive factors were 8.5 times more likely to achieve ≥90% score in quiet at 1 month after CI switch-on ( p = 0.010). In our sample, we detected 4 out of 32 cases with peripheral limiting factors that related to neural health or poor electrode-neural interface at both apical and basal positions. In contrast, neurocognitive limiting factors were identified in 14 out of 32 subjects. Early sentence recognition scores were predictive of long-term sentence recognition thresholds in noise such that limiting factors appeared to be of continuous influence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions: &lt;/strong&gt;Both peripheral and neurocognitive processing factors affect early sentence recognition after CI activation. Peripheral limiting factors may have been detected le","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":"98-110"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11637580/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141918187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Resting-State Functional Connectivity Predicts Cochlear-Implant Speech Outcomes.","authors":"Jamal Esmaelpoor, Tommy Peng, Beth Jelfs, Darren Mao, Maureen J Shader, Colette M McKay","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001564","DOIUrl":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001564","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Cochlear implants (CIs) have revolutionized hearing restoration for individuals with severe or profound hearing loss. However, a substantial and unexplained variability persists in CI outcomes, even when considering subject-specific factors such as age and the duration of deafness. In a pioneering study, we use resting-state functional near-infrared spectroscopy to predict speech-understanding outcomes before and after CI implantation. Our hypothesis centers on resting-state functional connectivity (FC) reflecting brain plasticity post-hearing loss and implantation, specifically targeting the average clustering coefficient in resting FC networks to capture variation among CI users.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>Twenty-three CI candidates participated in this study. Resting-state functional near-infrared spectroscopy data were collected preimplantation and at 1 month, 3 months, and 1 year postimplantation. Speech understanding performance was assessed using consonant-nucleus-consonant words in quiet and Bamford-Kowal-Bench sentences in noise 1-year postimplantation. Resting-state FC networks were constructed using regularized partial correlation, and the average clustering coefficient was measured in the signed weighted networks as a predictive measure for implantation outcomes.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Our findings demonstrate a significant correlation between the average clustering coefficient in resting-state functional networks and speech understanding outcomes, both pre- and postimplantation.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This approach uses an easily deployable resting-state functional brain imaging metric to predict speech-understanding outcomes in implant recipients. The results indicate that the average clustering coefficient, both pre- and postimplantation, correlates with speech understanding outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":"46 1","pages":"128-138"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11637576/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142839654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Influence of Asymmetric Hearing Loss on Peripheral and Central Auditory Processing Abilities in Patients With Vestibular Schwannoma.","authors":"Veronika Svobodová, Oliver Profant, Josef Syka, Diana Tóthová, Zbyněk Bureš","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001555","DOIUrl":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001555","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Asymmetric or unilateral hearing loss (AHL) may cause irreversible changes in the processing of acoustic signals in the auditory system. We aim to provide a comprehensive view of the auditory processing abilities for subjects with acquired AHL, and to examine the influence of AHL on speech perception under difficult conditions, and on auditory temporal and intensity processing.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>We examined peripheral and central auditory functions for 25 subjects with AHL resulting from vestibular schwannoma, and compared them to those from 24 normal-hearing controls that were matched with the AHL subjects in mean age and hearing thresholds in the healthy ear. Besides the basic hearing threshold assessment, the tests comprised the detection of tones and gaps in a continuous noise, comprehension of speech in babble noise, binaural interactions, difference limen of intensity, and detection of frequency modulation. For the AHL subjects, the selected tests were performed separately for the healthy and diseased ear.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We observed that binaural speech comprehension, gap detection, and frequency modulation detection abilities were dominated by the healthy ear and were comparable for both groups. The AHL subjects were less sensitive to interaural delays, however, they exhibited a higher sensitivity to sound level, as indicated by lower difference limen of intensity and a higher sensitivity to interaural intensity difference. Correlations between the individual test scores indicated that speech comprehension by the AHL subjects was associated with different auditory processing mechanisms than for the control subjects.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The data suggest that AHL influences both peripheral and central auditory processing abilities and that speech comprehension under difficult conditions relies on different mechanisms for the AHL subjects than for normal-hearing controls.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":"60-70"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141617699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hearing Loss and Annual Earnings Over a 20-Year Period: The HUNT Cohort Study.","authors":"Astrid Ytrehus Jørgensen, Bo Engdahl, Bernt Bratsberg, Ingrid Sivesind Mehlum, Howard J Hoffman, Lisa Aarhus","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001554","DOIUrl":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001554","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>The association between hearing loss and income has only been examined in cross-sectional studies. We aim to study annual increase in earnings over 20 years, comparing people with and without hearing loss.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>We used data from a population-based hearing study in Norway (The Trøndelag Health Study, 1996-1998), including 14,825 persons (46.2% men, mean age at baseline 30.6 years, age range 20 to 40 years). Hearing loss was defined as the pure-tone average threshold of 0.5 to 4 kHz in the better hearing ear ≥20 dB HL (n = 230). Annual earnings were assessed from 1997 to 2017. Longitudinal analyses were performed with linear mixed models adjusted for age, sex, and education.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>People without hearing loss at baseline (before age 40) had a greater annual increase in earnings over a 20-year follow-up period compared with people with hearing loss. For people with normal hearing, annual earnings over 20 years increased by 453 Euro (EUR) (95% confidence interval [CI] = 384 to 522) or 13.2% more per year than for people with hearing loss, adjusted for age and sex. The difference in annual earnings over 20 year was greater among women (462 EUR, 95% CI = 376 to 547) than men (424 EUR, 95% CI = 315 to 533), greater among younger than older adults, and greater among lower than higher educated persons. When including adjustment for education in the model, in addition to age and sex, the difference in annual earnings over 20 years between persons with and without hearing loss was reduced (337 EUR, 95% CI = 269 to 405).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The results from this large population-based study indicates that people with hearing loss experience lower long-term earnings growth compared with people with normal hearing. The findings highlight the need for increased interventions in the workplace for people with hearing loss.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":"121-127"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11637570/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141977315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}