title: On the Interplay Between Cochlear Gain Loss and Temporal Envelope Coding Deficits.
abstract: Hearing impairment is characterized by two potentially coexisting sensorineural components: (i) cochlear gain loss that yields wider auditory filters, elevated hearing thresholds and compression loss, and (ii) cochlear neuropathy, a noise-induced component of hearing loss that may impact temporal coding fidelity of supra-threshold sound. This study uses a psychoacoustic amplitude modulation (AM) detection task in quiet and multiple noise backgrounds to test whether these aspects of hearing loss can be isolated in listeners with normal to mildly impaired hearing ability. Psychoacoustic results were compared to distortion-product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) thresholds and envelope-following response (EFR) measures. AM thresholds to pure-tone carriers (4 kHz) in normal-hearing listeners depended on temporal coding fidelity. AM thresholds in hearing-impaired listeners were normal, indicating that reduced cochlear gain may counteract how reduced temporal coding fidelity degrades AM thresholds. The amount with which a 1-octave wide masking noise worsened AM detection was inversely correlated to DPOAE thresholds. The narrowband noise masker was shown to impact the hearing-impaired listeners more so than the normal hearing listeners, suggesting that this masker may be targeting a temporal coding deficit. This study offers a window into how psychoacoustic difference measures can be adopted in the differential diagnostics of hearing deficits in listeners with mixed forms of sensorineural hearing loss.
authors.affiliation: Medizinische Physik and Cluster of Excellence Hearing4all, Department of Medical Physics and Acoustics, Oldenburg University, Carl-von-Ossietzky Strasse 9-11, 26129, Oldenburg, Germany. Sarah.verhulst@uni-oldenburg.de.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Verhulst
authors.affiliation: Medizinische Physik and Cluster of Excellence Hearing4all, Department of Medical Physics and Acoustics, Oldenburg University, Carl-von-Ossietzky Strasse 9-11, 26129, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Patrycja
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Piktel
authors.affiliation: Medizinische Physik and Cluster of Excellence Hearing4all, Department of Medical Physics and Acoustics, Oldenburg University, Carl-von-Ossietzky Strasse 9-11, 26129, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Anoop
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jagadeesh
authors.affiliation: Medizinische Physik and Cluster of Excellence Hearing4all, Department of Medical Physics and Acoustics, Oldenburg University, Carl-von-Ossietzky Strasse 9-11, 26129, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mauermann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D003051:Cochlea / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011571:Psychoacoustics
keywords: Amplitude modulation detection; Cochlear neuropathy; DPOAE; EFR; Hearing impairment diagnostics