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Diminished temporal coding with sensorineural hearing loss emerges in background noise

Nature Neuroscience volume 15, pages 1362–1364 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Behavioral studies in humans suggest that sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) decreases sensitivity to the temporal structure of sound, but neurophysiological studies in mammals provide little evidence for diminished temporal coding. We found that SNHL in chinchillas degraded peripheral temporal coding in background noise substantially more than in quiet. These results resolve discrepancies between previous studies and help to explain why perceptual difficulties in hearing-impaired listeners often emerge in noisy situations.

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Figure 1: Representative neurophysiological responses of normal-hearing and impaired auditory-nerve fibers.
Figure 2: A negative effect of hearing loss on phase locking to tones emerges in background noise.
Figure 3: Noise-exposed fibers with broader tuning exhibit greater reductions in vector strength.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Boley and M. Walls for assisting with surgeries and K. Kluender and E. Davies-Venn for providing feedback on a previous draft of the manuscript. This research was supported by US National Institutes of Health grant R01-DC009838 to M.G.H. and grant F32-DC012236 to K.S.H. from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

    Kenneth S Henry & Michael G Heinz

  2. Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

    Michael G Heinz

Authors
  1. Kenneth S Henry
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  2. Michael G Heinz
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Contributions

K.S.H. and M.G.H. designed the experiments. K.S.H. collected and analyzed the data and wrote the paper with contribution from M.G.H.

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Correspondence to Michael G Heinz.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Henry, K., Heinz, M. Diminished temporal coding with sensorineural hearing loss emerges in background noise. Nat Neurosci 15, 1362–1364 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3216

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