Journal article
Effects of neonatal partial deafness and chronic intracochlear electrical stimulation on auditory and electrical response characteristics in primary auditory cortex
JB Fallon, RK Shepherd, M Brown, DRF Irvine
Hearing Research | Published : 2009
Abstract
The use of cochlear implants in patients with severe hearing losses but residual low-frequency hearing raises questions concerning the effects of chronic intracochlear electrical stimulation (ICES) on cortical responses to auditory and electrical stimuli. We investigated these questions by studying responses to tonal and electrical stimuli in primary auditory cortex (AI) of two groups of neonatally deafened cats with residual high-threshold, low-frequency hearing. One group were implanted with a multi-channel intracochlear electrode at 8 weeks of age, and received chronic ICES for up to 9 months before cortical recording. Cats in the other group were implanted immediately prior to cortical r..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
Funding Acknowledgements
This work was funded by NIDCD (N01-DC-3-1005 and HHS-N-263-2007-00053-C) and The Bionic Ear Institute. The Bionic Ear Institute acknowledges the support it receives from the Victorian Government through its Operational Infrastructure Support Program. The authors are grateful to Jin Xu and Helen Feng for electrode manufacture and surgical assistance; Anne Coco and Stephanie Epp for research assistance; Sue Pierce for veterinary advice Elisa Borg for animal maintenance; Rodney Millard for engineering support and helpful discussions on experimental design, and Hugh McDermott, Peter Blarney and two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.