Search

We measured the sustained neural response to electrical stimulation by a cochlear implant (CI). To do so, we interleaved two stimuli with frequencies F1 and F2 Hz and recorded a neural distortion response (NDR) at F2-F1 Hz. We show that, because any one time point contains only the F1 or F2 stimulus, the instantaneous nonlinearities typical of electrical artefact should not produce distortion at this frequency. However, if the stimulus is smoothed, such as by charge integration at the nerve membrane, subsequent (neural) nonlinearities can produce a component at F2-F1 Hz. We stimulated a single CI electrode with interleaved sinusoids or interleaved amplitude-modulated pulse trains such that F2 = 1.5F1, and found no evidence for an NDR when F2-F1 was between 90 and 120 Hz. However, interleaved amplitude-modulated pulse trains with F2-F1~40 Hz revealed a substantial NDR with a group delay of about 45 ms, consistent with a thalamic and/or cortical response. The NDR could be measured even from recording electrodes adjacent to the implant and at the highest pulse rates (> 4000 pps) used clinically. We then measured the selectivity of this sustained response by presenting F1 and F2 to different electrodes and at different between-electrode distances. This revealed a broad tuning that, we argue, reflects the overlap between the excitation elicited by the two electrodes. Our results also provide a glimpse of the neural nonlinearity in the auditory system, unaffected by the biomechanical cochlear nonlinearities that accompany acoustic stimulation. Several potential clinical applications of our findings are discussed. ispartof: JARO-JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH IN OTOLARYNGOLOGY vol:22 issue:2 pages:141-159 ispartof: location:United States status: published

Variations in neural health along the cochlea can degrade the spectral and temporal representation of sounds conveyed by cochlear implants (CIs). We evaluated and compared one electrophysiological measure and two behavioural measures that have been proposed as estimates of neural health patterns, in order to explore the extent to which the different measures provide converging and consistent neural health estimates. All measures were obtained from the same 11 users of the Cochlear Corporation CI. The two behavioural measures were multipulse integration (MPI) and the polarity effect (PE), both measured on each of seven electrodes per subject. MPI was measured as the difference between thresholds at 80 pps and 1000 pps, and PE as the difference in thresholds between cathodic- and anodic-centred quadraphasic (QP) 80-pps pulse trains. It has been proposed that good neural health corresponds to a large MPI and to a large negative PE (lower thresholds for cathodic than anodic pulses). The electrophysiological measure was the effect of interphase gap (IPG) on the offset of the ECAP amplitude growth function (AGF), which has been correlated with spiral ganglion neuron density in guinea pigs. This ‘IPG offset’ was obtained on the same subset of electrodes used for the behavioural measures. Despite high test–retest reliability, there were no significant correlations between the neural health estimates for either within-subject comparisons across the electrode array, or between-subject comparisons of the means. A phenomenological model of a population of spiral ganglion neurons was then used to investigate physiological mechanisms that might underlie the different neural health estimates. The combined experimental and modelling results provide evidence that PE, MPI and IPG offset may reflect different characteristics of the electrode-neural interface.

Funder: Oticon Centre of Excellence for Hearing and Speech Sciences (CHeSS), It has been suggested that a specialized high-temporal-acuity brainstem pathway can be activated by stimulating more apically in the cochlea than is achieved by cochlear implants (CIs) when programmed with contemporary clinical settings. We performed multiple experiments to test the effect on pitch perception of phantom stimulation and asymmetric current pulses, both supposedly stimulating beyond the most apical electrode of a CI. The two stimulus types were generated using a bipolar electrode pair, composed of the most apical electrode of the array and a neighboring, more basal electrode. Experiment 1 used a pitch-ranking procedure where neural excitation was shifted apically or basally using so-called phantom stimulation. No benefit of apical phantom stimulation was found on the highest rate up to which pitch ranks increased (upper limit), nor on the slopes of the pitch-ranking function above 300 pulses per second (pps). Experiment 2 used the same procedure to study the effects of apical pseudomonophasic pulses, where the locus of excitation was manipulated by changing stimulus polarity. A benefit of apical stimulation was obtained for the slopes above 300 pps. Experiment 3 used an adaptive rate discrimination procedure and found a small but significant benefit of both types of apical stimulation. Overall, the results show some benefit for apical stimulation on temporal pitch processing at high pulse rates but reveal that the effect is smaller and more variable across listeners than suggested by previous research. The results also provide some indication that the benefit of apical stimulation may decline over time since implantation.

The knowledge of patient-specific neural excitation patterns from cochlear implants (CIs) can provide important information for optimizing efficacy and improving speech perception outcomes. The Panoramic ECAP (‘PECAP’) method (Cosentino et al. 2015) uses forward-masked electrically evoked compound action-potentials (ECAPs) to estimate neural activation patterns of CI stimulation. The algorithm requires ECAPs be measured for all combinations of probe and masker electrodes, exploiting the fact that ECAP amplitudes reflect the overlapping excitatory areas of both probes and maskers. Here we present an improved version of the PECAP algorithm that imposes biologically realistic constraints on the solution, that, unlike the previous version, produces detailed estimates of neural activation patterns by modelling current spread and neural health along the intracochlear electrode array and is capable of identifying multiple regions of poor neural health. The algorithm was evaluated for reliability and accuracy in three ways: (1) computer-simulated current-spread and neural-health scenarios, (2) comparisons to psychophysical correlates of neural health and electrode-modiolus distances in human CI users, and (3) detection of simulated neural ‘dead’ regions (using forward masking) in human CI users. The PECAP algorithm reliably estimated the computer-simulated scenarios. A moderate but significant negative correlation between focused thresholds and the algorithm’s neural-health estimates was found, consistent with previous literature. It also correctly identified simulated ‘dead’ regions in all seven CI users evaluated. The revised PECAP algorithm provides an estimate of neural excitation patterns in CIs that could be used to inform and optimize CI stimulation strategies for individual patients in clinical settings.

A series of experiments investigated potential changes in temporal processing during the months following activation of a cochlear implant (CI) and as a function of stimulus level. Experiment 1 tested patients on the day of implant activation and two and six months later. All stimuli were presented using direct stimulation of a single apical electrode. The dependent variables were rate discrimination ratios (RDRs) for pulse trains with rates centred on 120 pulses per second (pps), obtained using an adaptive procedure, and a measure of the upper limit of temporal pitch, obtained using a pitch-ranking procedure.All stimuli were presented at their most comfortable level (MCL). RDRs decreased from 1.23 to 1.16 and the upper limit increased from 357 to 485 pps from 0 to 2 months post-activation, with no overall change from 2 to 6 months. Because MCLs and hence the testing level increased across sessions, two further experiments investigated whether the performance changes observed across sessions could be due to level differences. Experiment 2 re-tested a subset of subjects at 9 months post-activation, using current levels similar to those used at 0 months. Although the stimuli sounded softer, some subjects showed lower RDRs and/or higher upper limits at this re-test. Experiment 3 measured RDRs and the upper limit for a separate group of subjects at levels equal to 60%, 80%, and 100% of the dynamic range. RDRs decreased with increasing level. The upper limit increased with increasing level for most subjects, with two notable exceptions. Implications of the results for temporal plasticity are discussed, along with possible influences of the effects of level and of across-session learning.

Temporal processing by cochlear implant listeners is degraded and is affected by auditory deprivation. The fast-acting Kv3.1 potassium channel is important for sustained temporally accurate firing and is also susceptible to deprivation, the effects of which can be partially restored in animals by the molecule AUT00063. We report the results of a randomised placebo-controlled double-blind study on psychophysical tests of the effects of AUT00063 on temporal processing by CI listeners. The study measured the upper limit of temporal pitch, gap detection, and discrimination of low rates (centred on 120 pps) for monopolar pulse trains presented to an apical electrode. The upper limit was measured using the optimally efficient midpoint comparison (MPC) pitch-ranking procedure; thresholds were obtained for the other two measures using an adaptive procedure. Twelve CI users (MedEl and Cochlear) were tested before and after two periods of AUT00063 or placebo in a within-subject crossover study. No significant differences occurred between post-drug and post-placebo conditions. This absence of effect occurred despite high test-retest reliability for all three measures, obtained by comparing performance on the two baseline visits, and despite the demonstrated sensitivity of the measures to modest changes in temporal processing obtained in other studies from our laboratory. Hence, we have no evidence that AUT00063 improves temporal processing for the doses and patient population employed.

Cochlear implants (CIs) convey fundamental-frequency information using primarily temporal cues. However, temporal pitch perception in CI users is weak and, when measured using rate discrimination tasks, deteriorates markedly as the rate increases beyond 300 pulses-per-second. Rate pitch may be weak because the electrical stimulation of the surviving neural population of the implant recipient may not allow accurate coding of inter-pulse time intervals. If so, this phenomenon should prevent listeners from detecting when a pulse train is physically temporally jittered. Performance in a jitter detection task was compared to that in a rate-pitch discrimination task. Stimuli were delivered using direct stimulation in cochlear implants, on a mid-array and an apical electrode, and at two different rates (100 and 300 pps). Average performance on both tasks was worse at the higher pulse rate and did not depend on electrode. However, there was a large variability across and within listeners that did not correlate between the two tasks, suggesting that rate-pitch judgement and regularity detection are to some extent limited by task-specific processes. Simulations with filtered pulse trains presented to NH listeners yielded broadly similar results, except that, for the rate discrimination task, the difference between performance with 100- and 300-pps base rates was smaller than observed for CI users.

Thresholds of asymmetric pulses presented to cochlear implant (CI) listeners depend on polarity in a way that differs across subjects and electrodes. It has been suggested that lower thresholds for cathodic-dominant compared to anodic-dominant pulses reflect good local neural health. We evaluated the hypothesis that this polarity effect (PE) can be used in a site-selection strategy to improve speech perception and spectro-temporal resolution. Detection thresholds were measured in eight users of Advanced Bionics CIs for 80-pps, triphasic, monopolar pulse trains where the central high-amplitude phase was either anodic or cathodic. Two experimental MAPs were then generated for each subject by deactivating the five electrodes with either the highest or the lowest PE magnitudes (cathodic minus anodic threshold). Performance with the two experimental MAPs was evaluated using two spectro-temporal tests (Spectro-Temporal Ripple for Investigating Processor EffectivenesS (STRIPES; Archer-Boyd et al. in J Acoust Soc Am 144:2983–2997, 2018) and Spectral-Temporally Modulated Ripple Test (SMRT; Aronoff and Landsberger in J Acoust Soc Am 134:EL217–EL222, 2013)) and with speech recognition in quiet and in noise. Performance was also measured with an experimental MAP that used all electrodes, similar to the subjects’ clinical MAP. The PE varied strongly across subjects and electrodes, with substantial magnitudes relative to the electrical dynamic range. There were no significant differences in performance between the three MAPs at group level, but there were significant effects at subject level—not all of which were in the hypothesized direction—consistent with previous reports of a large variability in CI users’ performance and in the potential benefit of site-selection strategies. The STRIPES but not the SMRT test successfully predicted which strategy produced the best speech-in-noise performance on a subject-by-subject basis. The average PE across electrodes correlated significantly with subject age, duration of deafness, and speech perception scores, consistent with a relationship between PE and neural health. These findings motivate further investigations into site-specific measures of neural health and their application to CI processing strategies.

Psychophysical tests of spectro-temporal resolution may aid the evaluation of methods for improving hearing by cochlear implant (CI) listeners. Here the STRIPES (Spectro-Temporal Ripple for Investigating Processor EffectivenesS) test is described and validated. Like speech, the test requires both spectral and temporal processing to perform well. Listeners discriminate between complexes of sine sweeps which increase or decrease in frequency; difficulty is controlled by changing the stimulus spectro-temporal density. Care was taken to minimize extraneous cues, forcing listeners to perform the task only on the direction of the sweeps. Vocoder simulations with normal hearing listeners showed that the STRIPES test was sensitive to the number of channels and temporal information fidelity. An evaluation with CI listeners compared a standard processing strategy with one having very wide filters, thereby spectrally blurring the stimulus. Psychometric functions were monotonic for both strategies and five of six participants performed better with the standard strategy. An adaptive procedure revealed significant differences, all in favour of the standard strategy, at the individual listener level for six of eight CI listeners. Subsequent measures validated a faster version of the test, and showed that STRIPES could be performed by recently implanted listeners having no experience of psychophysical testing.

Cochlear implant (CI) users have poor temporal pitch perception, as revealed by two key outcomes of rate discrimination tests: (i) rate discrimination thresholds (RDTs) are typically larger than the corresponding frequency difference limen for pure tones in normal hearing listeners, and (ii) above a few hundred pulses per second (i.e. the “upper limit” of pitch), CI users cannot discriminate further increases in pulse rate. Both RDTs at low rates and the upper limit of pitch vary across listeners and across electrodes in a given listener. Here, we compare across-electrode and across-subject variation in these two measures with the variation in performance on another temporal processing task, gap detection, in order to explore the limitations of temporal processing in CI users. RDTs were obtained for 4–5 electrodes in each of 10 Advanced Bionics CI users using two interleaved adaptive tracks, corresponding to standard rates of 100 and 400 pps. Gap detection was measured using the adaptive procedure and stimuli described by Bierer et al. (JARO 16:273-284, 2015), and for the same electrodes and listeners as for the rate discrimination measures. Pitch ranking was also performed using a mid-point comparison technique. There was a marginal across-electrode correlation between gap detection and rate discrimination at 400 pps, but neither measure correlated with rate discrimination at 100 pps. Similarly, there was a highly significant across-subject correlation between gap detection and rate discrimination at 400, but not 100 pps, and these two correlations differed significantly from each other. Estimates of low-rate sensitivity and of the upper limit of pitch, obtained from the pitch ranking experiment, correlated well with rate discrimination for the 100- and 400-pps standards, respectively. The results are consistent with the upper limit of rate discrimination sharing a common basis with gap detection. There was no evidence that this limitation also applied to rate discrimination at lower rates.

We assessed auditory sensitivity to three classes of temporal-envelope statistics (modulation depth, modulation rate, and comodulation) that are important for the perception of ‘sound textures’. The textures were generated by a probabilistic model that prescribes the temporal statistics of a selected number of modulation envelopes, superimposed onto noise carriers. Discrimination thresholds were measured for normal-hearing (NH) listeners and users of a MED-EL pulsar cochlear implant (CI), for separate manipulations of the average rate and modulation depth of the envelope in each frequency band of the stimulus, and of the co-modulation between bands. Normal-hearing (NH) listeners' discrimination of envelope rate was similar for baseline modulation rates of 5 and 34 Hz, and much poorer than previously reported for sinusoidally amplitude-modulated sounds. In contrast, discrimination of model parameters that controlled modulation depth was poorer at the lower baseline rate, consistent with the idea that, at the lower rate, subjects get fewer ‘looks’ at the relevant information when comparing stimuli differing in modulation depth. NH listeners could discriminate differences in co-modulation across bands; a multidimensional scaling study revealed that this was likely due to genuine across-frequency processing, rather than within-channel cues. CI users' discrimination performance was worse overall than for NH listeners, but showed a similar dependence on stimulus parameters., Highlights • We measure discrimination thresholds for input parameters of a stochastic sound texture generator. • CochIear Implant listeners performed less well than Normal Hearing listeners. • Discrimination of parameters controlling modulation depth in a channel was better at higher overall modulation rates. • Rate discrimination is poorer for our complex stochastic modulation envelopes than ‘deterministic’ stimuli. • Changes in across-modulator interdependence may be derived by summing the outputs across multiple auditory filters.

The symmetric biphasic pulses used in contemporary cochlear implants (CIs) consist of both cathodic and anodic currents, which may stimulate different sites on spiral ganglion neurons and, potentially, interact with each other. The effect on the order of anodic and cathodic stimulation on loudness at short inter-pulse intervals (IPIs; 0–800 μs) is investigated. Pairs of opposite-polarity pseudomonophasic (PS) pulses were used and the amplitude of each pulse was manipulated independently. In experiment 1 the two PS pulses differed in their current level in order to elicit the same loudness when presented separately. Six users of the Advanced Bionics CI (Valencia, CA) loudness-ranked trains of the pulse pairs using a midpoint-comparison procedure. Stimuli with anodic-leading polarity were louder than those with cathodic-leading polarity for IPIs shorter than 400 μs. This effect was small—about 0.3 dB—but consistent across listeners. When the same procedure was repeated with both PS pulses having the same current level (experiment 2), anodic-leading stimuli were still louder than cathodic-leading stimuli at very short intervals. However, when using symmetric biphasic pulses (experiment 3) the effect disappeared at short intervals and reversed at long intervals. Possible peripheral sources of such polarity interactions are discussed.The symmetric biphasic pulses used in contemporary cochlear implants (CIs) consist of both cathodic and anodic currents, which may stimulate different sites on spiral ganglion neurons and, potentially, interact with each other. The effect on the order of anodic and cathodic stimulation on loudness at short inter-pulse intervals (IPIs; 0–800 μs) is investigated. Pairs of opposite-polarity pseudomonophasic (PS) pulses were used and the amplitude of each pulse was manipulated independently. In experiment 1 the two PS pulses differed in their current level in order to elicit the same loudness when presented separately. Six users of the Advanced Bionics CI (Valencia, CA) loudness-ranked trains of the pulse pairs using a midpoint-comparison procedure. Stimuli with anodic-leading polarity were louder than those with cathodic-leading polarity for IPIs shorter than 400 μs. This effect was small—about 0.3 dB—but consistent across listeners. When the same procedure was repeated with both PS pulses having the same cu...

Previous psychophysical and modelling studies suggest that cathodic stimulation by a cochlear implant (CI) may preferentially activate the peripheral processes of the auditory nerve, whereas anodic stimulation may preferentially activate the central axons. Because neural degeneration typically starts with loss of the peripheral processes, lower thresholds for cathodic than for anodic stimulation may indicate good local neural survival. We measured thresholds for 99-pulse-per-second trains of triphasic (TP) pulses where the central high-amplitude phase was either anodic (TP-A) or cathodic (TP-C). Thresholds were obtained in monopolar mode from four or five electrodes and a total of eight ears from subjects implanted with the Advanced Bionics CI. When between–subject differences were removed, there was a modest but significant correlation between the polarity effect (TP-C threshold minus TP-A threshold) and the average of TP-C and TP-A thresholds, consistent with the hypothesis that a large polarity effect corresponds to good neural survival. When data were averaged across electrodes for each subject, relatively low thresholds for TP-C correlated with a high “upper limit” (the pulse rate up to which pitch continues to increase) from a previous study [Cosentino S, Carlyon RP, Deeks JM, Parkinson W, Bierer JA (2016) Rate discrimination, gap detection and ranking of temporal pitch in cochlear implant users. J Assoc Otolaryngol 17:371– 382]. Overall the results provide modest indirect support for the hypothesis that the polarity effect provides an estimate of local neural survival.

Previous psychophysical and modeling studies suggest that cathodic stimulation by a cochlear implant (CI) may preferentially activate the peripheral processes of the auditory nerve, whereas anodic stimulation may preferentially activate the central axons. Because neural degeneration typically starts with loss of the peripheral processes, lower thresholds for cathodic than for anodic stimulation may indicate good local neural survival. We measured thresholds for 99-pulse-per-second trains of triphasic (TP) pulses where the central high-amplitude phase was either anodic (TP-A) or cathodic (TP-C). Thresholds were obtained in monopolar mode from four or five electrodes and a total of eight ears from subjects implanted with the Advanced Bionics CI. When between-subject differences were removed, there was a modest but significant correlation between the polarity effect (TP-C threshold minus TP-A threshold) and the average of TP-C and TP-A thresholds, consistent with the hypothesis that a large polarity effect corresponds to good neural survival. When data were averaged across electrodes for each subject, relatively low thresholds for TP-C correlated with a high “upper limit” (the pulse rate up to which pitch continues to increase) from a previous study (Cosentino et al. J Assoc Otolaryngol 17:371–382). Overall, the results provide modest indirect support for the hypothesis that the polarity effect provides an estimate of local neural survival.

Three experiments studied the extent to which cochlear implant users' spatial selectivity can be manipulated using asymmetric waveforms and tested an efficient method for comparing spatial selectivity produced by different stimuli. Experiment 1 measured forward-masked psychophysical tuning curves (PTCs) for a partial tripolar (pTP) probe. Maskers were presented on bipolar pairs separated by one unused electrode; waveforms were either symmetric biphasic ("SYM") or pseudomonophasic with the short high-amplitude phase being either anodic ("PSA") or cathodic ("PSC") on the more apical electrode. For the SYM masker, several subjects showed PTCs consistent with a bimodal excitation pattern, with discrete excitation peaks on each electrode of the bipolar masker pair. Most subjects showed significant differences between the PSA and PSC maskers consistent with greater masking by the electrode where the high-amplitude phase was anodic, but the pattern differed markedly across subjects. Experiment 2 measured masked excitation patterns for a pTP probe and either a monopolar symmetric biphasic masker ("MP_SYM") or pTP pseudomonophasic maskers where the short high-amplitude phase was either anodic ("TP_PSA") or cathodic ("TP_PSC") on the masker's central electrode. Four of the five subjects showed significant differences between the masker types, but again the pattern varied markedly across subjects. Because the levels of the maskers were chosen to produce the same masking of a probe on the same channel as the masker, it was correctly predicted that maskers that produce broader masking patterns would sound louder. Experiment 3 exploited this finding by using a single-point measure of spread of excitation to reveal significantly better spatial selectivity for TP_PSA compared to TP_PSC maskers. ispartof: Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology vol:18 issue:5 pages:711-727 ispartof: location:United States status: published

Objective To evaluate a speech-processing strategy in which the lowest frequency channel is conveyed using an asymmetric pulse shape and “phantom stimulation”, where current is injected into one intra-cochlear electrode and where the return current is shared between an intra-cochlear and an extra-cochlear electrode. This strategy is expected to provide more selective excitation of the cochlear apex, compared to a standard strategy where the lowest-frequency channel is conveyed by symmetric pulses in monopolar mode. In both strategies all other channels were conveyed by monopolar stimulation. Design Within-subjects comparison between the two strategies. Four experiments: (1) discrimination between the strategies, controlling for loudness differences, (2) consonant identification, (3) recognition of lowpass-filtered sentences in quiet, (4) sentence recognition in the presence of a competing speaker. Study sample Eight users of the Advanced Bionics CII/Hi-Res 90k cochlear implant. Results Listeners could easily discriminate between the two strategies but no consistent differences in performance were observed. Conclusions The proposed method does not improve speech perception, at least in the short term.

International audience; Users of Advanced Bionics, MedEl, and Cochlear Corp. implants balanced the loudness of trains of asymmetric pulses of opposite polarities presented in monopolar mode. For the Advanced Bionics and MedEl users the pulses were triphasic and consisted of a 32-μs central phase flanked by two 32-μs phases of opposite polarity and half the amplitude. The central phase was either anodic (TP-A) or cathodic (TP-C). For the Cochlear Corp. users, pulses consisted of two 32-μs phases of the same polarity separated by an 8-μs gap, flanked by two 32-μs phases of the opposite polarity, each of which was separated from the central portion by a 58-μs gap. The central portion of these quadraphasic pulses was either anodic (QP-A) or cathodic (QP-C), and all phases had the same amplitude. The current needed to achieve matched loudness was lower for the anodic than for the cathodic stimuli. This polarity effect was similar across all electrode locations studied, including the most apical electrode of the MedEl device which stimulates the very apex of the cochlea. In addition, when quadraphasic pulses were presented in bipolar mode, listeners reported hearing a lower pitch when the central portion was anodic at the more apical, than at the more basal, electrode. The results replicate previous reports that, unlike the results of most animal studies, human cochlear implant listeners are more sensitive to anodic than to cathodic currents, and extend those findings to a wider range of cochlear sites, implant types, and pulse shapes.

Four experiments measured the perceptual and neural correlates of the temporal pattern of electrical stimulation applied to one cochlear-implant (CI) electrode, for several subjects. Neural effects were estimated from the electrically evoked compound action potential (ECAP) to each pulse. Experiment 1 attenuated every second pulse of a 200-pps pulse train. Increasing attenuation caused pitch to drop and the ECAP to become amplitude modulated, thereby providing an estimate of the relationship between neural modulation and pitch. Experiment 2 showed that the pitch of a 200-pps pulse train can be reduced by delaying every second pulse, so that the inter-pulse-intervals alternate between longer and shorter intervals. This caused the ECAP to become amplitude modulated, but not by enough to account for the change in pitch. Experiment 3 replicated the finding that rate discrimination deteriorates with increases in baseline rate. This was accompanied by an increase in ECAP modulation, but by an amount that produced only a small effect on pitch in experiment 1. Experiment 4 showed that preceding a pulse train with a carefully selected "pre-pulse" could reduce ECAP modulation, but did not improve rate discrimination. Implications for theories of pitch and for limitations of pitch perception in CI users are discussed.

Three experiments studied the effect of pulse rate on temporal pitch perception by cochlear implant users. Experiment 1 measured rate discrimination for pulse trains presented in bipolar mode to either an apical, middle, or basal electrode and for standard rates of 100 and 200 pps. In each block of trials the signals could have a level of -0.35, 0, or +0.35 dB re the standard, and performance for each signal level was recorded separately. Signal level affected performance for just over half of the combinations of subject, electrode, and standard rate studied. Performance was usually, but not always, better at the higher signal level. Experiment 2 showed that, for a given subject and condition, the direction of the effect was similar in monopolar and bipolar mode. Experiment 3 employed a pitch comparison procedure without feedback, and showed that the signal levels in experiment 1 that produced the best performance for a given subject and condition also led to the signal having a higher pitch. It is concluded that small level differences can have a robust and substantial effect on pitch judgments and argue that these effects are not entirely due to response biases or to co-variation of place-of-excitation with level.

International audience; Cochlear implants (CIs) stimulate the auditory nerve with trains of symmetric biphasic (BI) pulses. We review studies showing that more efficient stimulation can be achieved by modifying these pulses by (1) increasing the inter-phase gap (IPG) between the two phases of each pulse, thereby delaying the recovery of charge, (2) increasing the duration and decreasing the amplitude of one phase - so-called "pseudomonophasic (PS)" waveforms, and (3) combining the pseudomonophasic stimulus with an IPG in a "delayed pseudomonophasic" waveform (PS_IPG). These efficiency gains, measured using changes in threshold and loudness, occur at a wide range of pulse rates, including those commonly used in current CI systems. In monopolar mode, dynamic ranges are larger for PS and for long-IPG pulse shapes than for BI pulses, but this increase in DR is not accompanied by a higher number of discriminable loudness steps, and hence, in a better coding of loudness. Moreover, waveforms with relatively short and long interphase gaps do not yield different patterns of excitation despite the relatively large differences in threshold. Two important findings are that, contrary to data obtained in animal experiments, anodic currents are more effective than cathodic stimulation for human CI patients and that the thresholds decrease with increases in IPG over a much longer time course (more than 3 ms) than for animals. In this review it is discussed how these alternative pulse shapes may be beneficial in terms of reducing power consumption and channel interactions, which issues remain to be addressed, and how models contribute to guiding our research.

Objective: Electrically evoked compound action potentials (ECAPs) have been employed as a measure of neural activation evoked by cochlear implant (CI) stimulation. A forward-masking procedure is commonly used to reduce stimulus artefacts. This method estimates the joint neural activation produced by two electrodes—one acting as probe and the other as masker; as such, the measured ECAPs depend on the activation patterns produced by both. We describe an approach–-termed panoramic ECAP (“PECAP”)–-that allows reconstruction of the underlying neural activation pattern of individual channels from ECAP amplitudes. Methods: The proposed approach combines two constrained nonlinear optimization stages. PECAP was validated against simulated and physiological data from CI users. The physiological data consisted of ECAPs measured from four users of Cochlear devices. For each subject, an $18 \times 18$ ECAP amplitude matrix was measured using a forward-masking method. Results: The results from computer simulations indicate that our approach can reliably estimate the underlying activation patterns from ECAP amplitudes even for instances of neural “dead regions” or cross-turn stimulation. The operating signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the proposed algorithm was 5 dB or higher, which matched well the SNR measured from human physiological data. Human ECAPs were fitted with our procedure to determine neural activation patterns. Conclusion: PECAP can be used to identify undesirable features of the neural activation pattern of individual CI users. Significance: Our approach may have clinical application as an objective measure of electrode-to-neuron interface and may be used to devise ad hoc stimulation strategies.

Behavioral measures of spatial selectivity in cochlear implants are important both for guiding the programing of individual users’ implants and for the evaluation of different stimulation methods. However, the methods used are subject to a number of confounding factors that can contaminate estimates of spatial selectivity. These factors include off-site listening, charge interactions between masker and probe pulses in interleaved masking paradigms, and confusion effects in forward masking. We review the effects of these confounds and discuss methods for minimizing them. We describe one such method in which the level of a 125-pps masker is adjusted so as to mask a 125-pps probe, and where the masker and probe pulses are temporally interleaved. Five experiments describe the method and evaluate the potential roles of the different potential confounding factors. No evidence was obtained for off-site listening of the type observed in acoustic hearing. The choice of the masking paradigm was shown to alter the measured spatial selectivity. For short gaps between masker and probe pulses, both facilitation and refractory mechanisms had an effect on masking; this finding should inform the choice of stimulation rate in interleaved masking experiments. No evidence for confusion effects in forward masking was revealed. It is concluded that the proposed method avoids many potential confounds but that the choice of method should depend on the research question under investigation.

To further understand the response of the human brainstem to electrical stimulation, a series of experiments compared the effect of pulse rate and polarity on detection thresholds between auditory brainstem implant (ABI) and cochlear implant (CI) patients. Experiment 1 showed that for 400-ms pulse trains, ABI users’ thresholds dropped by about 2 dB as pulse rate was increased from 71 to 500 pps, but only by an average of 0.6 dB as rate was increased further to 3500 pps. This latter decrease was much smaller than the 7.7-dB observed for CI users. A similar result was obtained for pulse trains with a 40-ms duration. Furthermore, experiment 2 showed that the threshold difference between 500- and 3500-pps pulse trains remained much smaller for ABI than for CI users, even for durations as short as 2 ms, indicating the effect of a fast-acting mechanism. Experiment 3 showed that ABI users’ thresholds were lower for alternating-polarity than for fixed-polarity pulse trains, and that this difference was greater at 3500 pps than at 500 pps, consistent with the effect of pulse rate on ABI users’ thresholds being influenced by charge interactions between successive biphasic pulses. Experiment 4 compared thresholds and loudness between trains of asymmetric pulses of opposite polarity, in monopolar mode, and showed that in both cases less current was needed when the anodic, rather than the cathodic, current was concentrated into a short time interval. This finding is similar to that previously observed for CI users and is consistent with ABI users being more sensitive to anodic than cathodic current. We argue that our results constrain potential explanations for the differences in the perception of electrical stimulation by CI and ABI users, and have potential implications for future ABI stimulation strategies.

Human behavioral thresholds for trains of biphasic pulses applied to a single channel of Nucleus CI24 and LAURA cochlear implants were measured as a function of inter-phase gap (IPG). Experiment 1 used bipolar stimulation, a 100-pps pulse rate, and a 400-ms stimulus duration. In one condition, the two phases of each pulse had opposite polarity. Thresholds continued to drop by 9-10 dB as IPG was increased from near zero to the longest value tested (2900 micros for CI24, 4900 micros for LAURA). This time course is much longer than reported for single-cell recordings from animals. In a second condition, the two phases of each pulse had the same polarity, which alternated from pulse to pulse. Thresholds were independent of IPG, and similar to those in condition 1 at IPG=4900 micros. Experiment 2 used monopolar stimulation. One condition was similar to condition 1 of experiment 1, and thresholds also dropped up to the longest IPG studied (2900 micros). This also happened when the pulse rate was reduced to 20 pps, and when only a single pulse was presented on each trial. Keeping IPG constant at 8 micros and adding an extra biphasic pulse x ms into each period produced thresholds that were roughly independent of x, indicating that the effect of IPG in the other conditions was not due to a release from refractoriness at sites central to the auditory nerve. Experiment 3 measured thresholds at three IPGs, which were less than, equal to, and more than one half of the interval between successive pulses. Thresholds were lowest at the intermediate IPG. The results of all experiments could be fit by a linear model consisting of a lowpass filter based on the function relating threshold to the frequency of sinusoidal electrical stimulation. The data and model have implications for reducing the power consumption of cochlear implants.

International audience; A series of experiments investigated the effects of asymmetric current waveforms on the perception of place and temporal pitch cues. The asymmetric waveforms were trains of pseudomonophasic (PS) pulses consisting of a short, high-amplitude phase followed by a longer (and lower amplitude) opposite-polarity phase. When such pulses were presented in a narrow bipolar ("BP+1") mode and with the first phase anodic relative to the most apical electrode (so-called PSA pulses), pitch was lower than when the first phase was anodic re the more basal electrode. For a pulse rate of 12 pulses per second (pps), pitch was also lower than with standard symmetric biphasic pulses in either monopolar or bipolar mode. This suggests that PSA pulses can extend the range of place-pitch percepts available to cochlear implant listeners by focusing the spread of excitation in a more apical region than common stimulation techniques. Temporal pitch was studied by requiring subjects to pitch-rank single-channel pulse trains with rates ranging from 105 to 1,156 pps; this task was repeated at several intra-cochlear stimulation sites and using both symmetric and pseudomonophasic pulses. For PSA pulses presented to apical electrodes, the upper limit of temporal pitch was significantly higher than that for all the other conditions, averaging 713 pps. Measures of discriminability obtained using the method of constant stimuli indicated that this pitch percept was probably weak. However, a multidimensional scaling study showed that the percept associated with a rate change, even at high rates, was orthogonal to that of a place change and therefore reflected a genuine change in the temporal pattern of neural activity.

International audience; Four cochlear implant users, having normal hearing in the unimplanted ear, compared the pitches of electrical and acoustic stimuli presented to the two ears. Comparisons were between 1,031-pps pulse trains and pure tones or between 12 and 25-pps electric pulse trains and bandpass-filtered acoustic pulse trains of the same rate. Three methods-pitch adjustment, constant stimuli, and interleaved adaptive procedures-were used. For all methods, we showed that the results can be strongly influenced by non-sensory biases arising from the range of acoustic stimuli presented, and proposed a series of checks that should be made to alert the experimenter to those biases. We then showed that the results of comparisons that survived these checks do not deviate consistently from the predictions of a widely-used cochlear frequency-to-place formula or of a computational cochlear model. We also demonstrate that substantial range effects occur with other widely used experimental methods, even for normal-hearing listeners.

Experiment 1 replicated the finding that normal-hearing listeners identify speech better in modulated than in unmodulated noise. This modulated-unmodulated difference (“MUD”) has been previously shown to be reduced or absent for cochlear-implant listeners and for normal-hearing listeners presented with noise-vocoded speech. Experiments 2–3 presented normal-hearing listeners with noise-vocoded speech in unmodulated or 16-Hz-square-wave modulated noise, and investigated whether the introduction of simple binaural differences between target and masker could restore the masking release. Stimuli were presented over headphones. When the target and masker were presented to one ear, adding a copy of the masker to the other ear (“diotic configuration”) aided performance but did so to a similar degree for modulated and unmodulated maskers, thereby failing to improve the modulation masking release. Presenting an uncorrelated noise to the opposite ear (“dichotic configuration”) had no effect, either for modulated or unmodulated maskers, consistent with the improved performance in the diotic configuration being due to interaural decorrelation processing. For noise-vocoded speech, the provision of simple spatial differences did not allow listeners to take greater advantage of the dips present in a modulated masker.

Three experiments studied discrimination of changes in the rate of electrical pulse trains by cochlear-implant (CI) users and investigated the effect of manipulations that would be expected to substantially affect the pattern of auditory nerve (AN) activity. Experiment 1 used single-electrode stimulation and tested discrimination at baseline rates between 100 and 500 pps. Performance was generally similar for stimulus durations of 200 and 800 ms, and, for the longer duration, for stimuli that were gated on abruptly or with 300-ms ramps. Experiment 2 used a similar procedure and found that no substantial benefit was obtained by the addition of background 5000-pps "conditioning" pulses. Experiment 3 used a pitch-ranking procedure and found that the range of rates over which pitch increased with increasing rate was not greater for multiple-electrode than for single-electrode stimulation. The results indicate that the limitation on pulse-rate discrimination by CI users, at high baseline rates, is not specific to a particular temporal pattern of the AN response. © 2010 Acoustical Society of America.

A common finding in the cochlear implant literature is that the upper limit of rate discrimination on a single channel is about 300 pps. The present study investigated rate discrimination using a procedure in which, in each block of two-interval trials, the standard could have one of the five baseline rates (100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 pps) and the signal rate was a given percentage higher than the standard. Eight Med-El C40+ subjects took part. The pattern of results was different than those reported previously: six Med-El subjects performed better at medium rates (200-300 pps) compared to both lower (100 pps) and higher (400-500 pps) rates. A similar pattern of results was obtained both with the method of constant stimuli and for 5000-pps pulse trains amplitude modulated at rates between 100 and 500 Hz. Compared to an unmatched group of eight Nucleus CI24 listeners tested using a similar paradigm and stimuli, Med-El subjects performed significantly better at 300 pps and higher but slightly worse at 100 pps. These results are discussed in relation to evidence on the limits of temporal pitch at low and high rates in normal-hearing listeners.

International audience; Most contemporary cochlear implants (CIs) stimulate the auditory nerve with trains of amplitude-modulated, symmetric biphasic pulses. Although both polarities of a pulse can depolarize the nerve fibers and generate action potentials, it remains unknown which of the two (positive or negative) phases has the stronger effect. Understanding the effects of pulse polarity will help to optimize the stimulation protocols and to deliver the most relevant information to the implant listeners. Animal experiments have shown that cathodic (negative) current flows are more effective than anodic (positive) ones in eliciting neural responses, and this finding has motivated the development of novel speech-processing algorithms. In this study, we show electrophysiologically and psychophysically that the human auditory system exhibits the opposite pattern, being more sensitive to anodic stimulation. We measured electrically evoked compound action potentials in CI listeners for phase-separated pulses, allowing us to tease out the responses to each of the two opposite-polarity phases. At an equal stimulus level, the anodic phase yielded the larger response. Furthermore, a measure of psychophysical masking patterns revealed that this polarity difference was still present at higher levels of the auditory system and was therefore not solely due to antidromic propagation of the neural response. This finding may relate to a particular orientation of the nerve fibers relative to the electrode or to a substantial degeneration and demyelination of the peripheral processes. Potential applications to improve CI speech-processing strategies are discussed.

Experiment 1 measured rate discrimination of electric pulse trains by bilateral cochlear implant (CI) users, for standard rates of 100, 200, and 300 pps. In the diotic condition the pulses were presented simultaneously to the two ears. Consistent with previous results with unilateral stimulation, performance deteriorated at higher standard rates. In the signal interval of each trial in the dichotic condition, the standard rate was presented to the left ear and the (higher) signal rate was presented to the right ear; the non-signal intervals were the same as in the diotic condition. Performance in the dichotic condition was better for some listeners than in the diotic condition for standard rates of 100 and 200 pps, but not at 300 pps. It is concluded that the deterioration in rate discrimination observed for CI users at high rates cannot be alleviated by the introduction of a binaural cue, and is unlikely to be limited solely by central pitch processes. Experiment 2 performed an analogous experiment in which 300-pps acoustic pulse trains were bandpass filtered (3900-5400 Hz) and presented in a noise background to normal-hearing listeners. Unlike the results of experiment 1, performance was superior in the dichotic than in the diotic condition.

In the "4-6" condition of experiment 1, normal-hearing (NH) listeners compared the pitch of a bandpass-filtered pulse train, whose inter-pulse intervals (IPIs) alternated between 4 and 6 ms, to that of isochronous pulse trains. Consistent with previous results obtained at a lower signal level, the pitch of the 4-6 stimulus corresponded to that of an isochronous pulse train having a period of 5.7 ms-longer than the mean IPI of 5 ms. In other conditions the IPI alternated between 3.5-5.5 and 4.5-6.5 ms. Experiment 2 was similar but presented electric pulse trains to one channel of a cochlear implant. In both cases, as overall IPI increased, the pitch of the alternating-interval stimulus approached that of an isochronous train having a period equal to the mean IPI. Experiment 3 measured compound action potentials (CAPs) to alternating-interval stimuli in guinea pigs and in NH listeners. The CAPs to pulses occurring after 4-ms intervals were smaller than responses to pulses occurring after 6-ms intervals, resulting in a modulated pattern that was independent of overall level. The results are compared to the predictions of a simple model incorporating auditory-nerve (AN) refractoriness, and where pitch is estimated from first-order intervals in the AN response.

International audience; Existing cochlear implants stimulate the auditory nerve with trains of symmetric biphasic (BP) pulses. Recent data have shown that modifying the pulse shape, while maintaining charge balance, may be beneficial in terms of reducing power consumption, increasing dynamic range, and limiting channel interactions. We measured thresholds and most comfortable levels (MCLs) for various 99-pulses-per-second (pps) stimuli. "Pseudomonophasic (PS)" pulses consist of a brief phase of one polarity followed immediately by a longer and lower-amplitude phase of the opposite polarity. We focused on a novel variant of PS pulses, termed the "delayed pseudomonophasic (DPS)" stimulus, in which the longer phase is presented midway between the short phases of two consecutive pulses. DPS pulse trains produced thresholds that were more than 10 dB lower than those obtained with BP pulses. This reduction was much greater than the 0- to 3-dB drop obtained with PS pulses and was still more than 6 dB when a pulse rate of 892 pps was used. A study of the relative contributions of the two phases of DPS suggested that the short, high-amplitude phase dominated the perceived loudness. This study showed major threshold and MCL reductions using a DPS stimulus compared to the widely used BP stimulus. These reductions, which were predicted by a simple linear filter model, might lead to considerable power savings if implemented in a cochlear implant speech processor.

We investigated potential cues to sound segregation by cochlear implant (CI) and normal-hearing (NH) listeners. In each presentation interval of experiment 1a, CI listeners heard a mixture of four pulse trains applied concurrently to separate electrodes, preceded by a "probe" applied to a single electrode. In one of these two intervals, which the subject had to identify, the probe electrode was the same as a "target" electrode in the mixture. The pulse train on the target electrode had a higher level than the others in the mixture. Additionally, it could be presented either with a 200-ms onset delay, at a lower rate, or with an asynchrony produced by delaying each pulse by about 5 ms re those on the nontarget electrodes. Neither the rate difference nor the asynchrony aided performance over and above the level difference alone, but the onset delay produced a modest improvement. Experiment 1b showed that two subjects could perform the task using the onset delay alone, with no level difference. Experiment 2 used a method similar to that of experiment 1, but investigated the onset cue using NH listeners. In one condition, the mixture consisted of harmonics 5 to 40 of a 100-Hz fundamental, with the onset of either harmonics 13 to 17 or 26 to 30 delayed re the rest. Performance was modest in this condition, but could be improved markedly by using stimuli containing a spectral gap between the target and nontarget harmonics. The results suggest that (a) CI users are unlikely to use temporal pitch differences between adjacent channels to separate concurrent sounds, and that (b) they can use onset differences between channels, but the usefulness of this cue will be compromised by the spread of excitation along the nerve-fiber array. This deleterious effect of spread-of-excitation can also impair the use of onset cues by NH listeners.

Two experiments used simulations of cochlear implant hearing to investigate the use of temporal codes in speech segregation. Sentences were filtered into six bands, and their envelopes used to modulate filtered alternating-phase harmonic complexes with rates of 80 or 140 pps. Experiment 1 showed that identification of single sentences was better for the higher rate. In experiment 2, maskers (time-reversed concatenated sentences) were scaled by -9 dB relative to a target sentence, which was added with an offset of 1.2 s. When the target and masker were each processed on all six channels, and then summed, processing the masker on a different rate to the target improved performance only when the target rate was 140 pps. When the target sentence was processed on the odd-numbered channels and the masker on the even-numbered channels, or vice versa, performance was worse overall, but showed similar effects of pulse rate. The results, combined with recent psychophysical evidence, suggest that differences in pulse rate are unlikely to prove useful for concurrent sound segregation.

Two experiments investigated pitch perception for stimuli where the place of excitation was held constant. Experiment 1 used pulse trains in which the interpulse interval alternated between 4 and 6 ms. In experiment 1a these “4–6” pulse trains were bandpass filtered between 3900 and 5300 Hz and presented acoustically against a noise background to normal listeners. The rate of an isochronous pulse train (in which all the interpulse intervals were equal) was adjusted so that its pitch matched that of the “4–6” stimulus. The pitch matches were distributed unimodally, had a mean of 5.7 ms, and never corresponded to either 4 or to 10 ms (the period of the stimulus). In experiment 1b the pulse trains were presented both acoustically to normal listeners and electrically to users of the LAURA cochlear implant, via a single channel of their device. A forced-choice procedure was used to measure psychometric functions, in which subjects judged whether the 4–6 stimulus was higher or lower in pitch than isochronous pulse trains having periods of 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 ms. For both groups of listeners, the point of subjective equality corresponded to a period of 5.6 to 5.7 ms. Experiment 1c confirmed that these psychometric functions were monotonic over the range 4–12 ms. In experiment 2, normal listeners adjusted the rate of an isochronous filtered pulse train to match the pitch of mixtures of pulse trains having rates of F1 and F2 Hz, passed through the same bandpass filter (3900–5400 Hz). The ratio F2/F1 was 1.29 and F1 was either 70, 92, 109, or 124 Hz. Matches were always close to F2 Hz. It is concluded that the results of both experiments are inconsistent with models of pitch perception which rely on higher-order intervals. Together with those of other published data on purely temporal pitch perception, the data are consistent with a model in which only first-order interpulse intervals contribute to pitch, and in which, over the range 0–12 ms, longer intervals receive higher weights than short intervals.

Cochlear implant (CI) users usually exhibit marked across-electrode differences in detection thresholds with "focused" modes of stimulation, such as partial-tripolar (pTP) mode. This may reflect differences either in local neural survival or in the distance of the electrodes from the modiolus. To shed light on these two explanations, we compared stimulus-detection thresholds and gap-detection thresholds (GDTs) at comfortably loud levels for at least four electrodes in each of ten Advanced Bionics CI users, using 1031-pps pulse trains. The electrodes selected for each user had a wide range of stimulus-detection thresholds in pTP mode. We also measured across-electrode variations in both stimulus-detection and gap-detection tasks in monopolar (MP) mode. Both stimulus-detection and gap-detection thresholds correlated across modes. However, there was no significant correlation between stimulus-detection and gap-detection thresholds in either mode. Hence, gap-detection thresholds likely tap a source of across-electrode variation additional to, or different from, that revealed by stimulus-detection thresholds. Stimulus-detection thresholds were significantly lower for apical than for basal electrodes in both modes; this was only true for gap detection in pTP mode. Finally, although the across-electrode standard deviation in stimulus-detection thresholds was greater in pTP than in MP mode, the reliability of these differences--assessed by dividing the across-electrode standard deviation by the standard deviation across adaptive runs for each electrode--was similar for the two modes; this metric was also similar across modes for gap detection. Hence across-electrode differences can be revealed using clinically available MP stimulation, with a reliability comparable to that observed with focused stimulation.