The Sensitivity of the Electrically Stimulated Auditory Nerve to Amplitude Modulation Cues Declines With Advanced Age.
William J Riggs, Chloe Vaughan, Jeffrey Skidmore and 5 others
PMID 33795616WHAT IT FOUND
The auditory nerve's ability to track amplitude modulation cues declines with advanced age in cochlear implant users.
However, the duration of deafness showed no reliable relationship with this neural sensitivity, likely because measuring deafness duration accurately is difficult.
Key findings
01The sensitivity of the electrically stimulated auditory nerve to amplitude modulation cues decreases as the age at testing increases.
02There was no reliable relationship found between the duration of deafness and the auditory nerve's sensitivity to amplitude modulation cues.
03Quantifying the duration of deafness using self-reported, speech-defined, and clinician-defined methods produced dramatically different results for the same participants.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Speech perception capabilities were not evaluated, so the direct link between the measured neural sensitivity and functional speech outcomes is not established. The duration of deafness could not be accurately measured for all participants due to missing data and the lack of a standard definition, which may have obscured any true relationship. The study used only one carrier pulse rate (2000 pps) and specific pulse parameters, limiting the generalizability of the results to other stimulation configurations. The sample size was small (21 participants), which reduces the precision of the estimates, particularly for the duration of deafness analysis.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (N.I.H., Extramural).
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a longer duration of deafness causes poorer auditory nerve sensitivity. The study found no reliable relationship between these two factors, likely because accurately measuring the duration of deafness is inherently difficult and inconsistent across methods.