title: Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation over the auditory cortex improved hearing impairment in a patient with brainstem encephalitis.
abstract: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can alter cortical excitability, and has been effective in treating some neurological disorders. This case report describes the use of tDCS in a 13-year-old female who developed bilateral hearing impairment after brainstem encephalitis when she was 6 years old. Her auditory function was more impaired in her right ear than her left. Anodal stimulation (1 mA) was applied for 10 min to the left auditory cortex once per day for 4 consecutive days to improve her right ear speech discrimination score. Sustained and significant improvement in maximum speech discrimination was observed after the four tDCS treatments. To our knowledge, this is the first case report of improvement in speech discrimination after anodal stimulation of the auditory cortex. These results encourage further studies investigating the beneficial effects of tDCS in patients with hearing impairments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Takayuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan naoyuki@med.tohoku.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Naoyuki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Takeuchi
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Physiology, Tohoku University Hospital, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Sakiko
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Physiology, Tohoku University Hospital, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Mika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Miki
authors.affiliation: Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Tetsuaki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kawase
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Shin-Ichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Izumi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000473:pathology*; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000473:pathology*; D004566:Electrodes; D004660:Encephalitis / Q000150:complications* / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000150:complications* / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D013060:Speech; D065908:Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Transcranial direct current stimulation; auditory cortex; encephalitis; hearing impairment; speech discrimination