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Background/Objectives: Given the importance of emotion recognition for communication purposes, and the impairment for such skill in CI users despite impressive language performances, the aim of the present study was to investigate the neural correlates of emotion recognition skills, apart from language, in adult unilateral CI (UCI) users during a music in noise (happy/sad) recognition task. Furthermore, asymmetry was investigated through electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythm, given the traditional concept of hemispheric lateralization for emotional processing, and the intrinsic asymmetry due to the clinical UCI condition. Methods: Twenty adult UCI users and eight normal hearing (NH) controls were recruited. EEG gamma and alpha band power was assessed as there is evidence of a relationship between gamma and emotional response and between alpha asymmetry and tendency to approach or withdraw from stimuli. The TAS-20 questionnaire (alexithymia) was completed by the participants. Results: The results showed no effect of background noise, while supporting that gamma activity related to emotion processing shows alterations in the UCI group compared to the NH group, and that these alterations are also modulated by the etiology of deafness. In particular, relative higher gamma activity in the CI side corresponds to positive processes, correlated with higher emotion recognition abilities, whereas gamma activity in the non-CI side may be related to positive processes inversely correlated with alexithymia and also inversely correlated with age; a correlation between TAS-20 scores and age was found only in the NH group. Conclusions: EEG gamma activity appears to be fundamental to the processing of the emotional aspect of music and also to the psychocognitive emotion-related component in adults with CI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cochlear implants (CI) allow deaf patients to improve language perception and improving their emotional valence assessment. Electroencephalographic (EEG) measures were employed so far to improve CI programming reliability and to evaluate listening effort in auditory tasks, which are particularly useful in conditions when subjective evaluations are scarcely appliable or reliable. Unfortunately, the presence of CI on the scalp introduces an electrical artifact coupled to EEG signals that masks physiological features recorded by electrodes close to the site of implant. Currently, methods for CI artifact removal have been developed for very specific EEG montages or protocols, while others require many scalp electrodes. In this study, we propose a method based on the Multi-channel Wiener filter (MWF) to overcome those shortcomings. Nine children with unilateral CI and nine age-matched normal hearing children (control) participated in the study. EEG data were acquired on a relatively low number of electrodes (n = 16) during resting condition and during an auditory task. The obtained results obtained allowed to characterize CI artifact on the affected electrode and to significantly reduce, if not remove it through MWF filtering. Moreover, the results indicate, by comparing the two sample populations, that the EEG data loss is minimal in CI users after filtering, and that data maintain EEG physiological characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]