Abstract
Hearing is critical to spoken language, cognitive, and social development. Little is known about how early auditory experiences impact the brain structure of children with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. This study examined the influence of hearing aid use and residual hearing on the auditory cortex of children with severe to profound congenital sensorineural hearing loss. We evaluated cortical preservation in 103 young pediatric cochlear implant candidates (55 females and 48 males) by comparing their multivoxel pattern similarity of auditory cortical structure with that of 78 age-matched children with typical hearing. The results demonstrated that early-stage hearing aid use preserved the auditory cortex of children with bilateral congenital sensorineural hearing loss. Children with less residual hearing experienced a more pronounced advantage from hearing aid use. However, this beneficial effect gradually diminished after 17 months of hearing aid use. These findings support timely fitting of hearing aids in conjunction with early implantation to take advantage of neural preservation to maximize auditory and spoken language development.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | bhae145 |
| Journal | Cerebral Cortex |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 2024 |
Funding
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health R21DC016069 and R01DC019387.
Keywords
- amplification
- auditory cortex
- cochlear implant candidate
- residual hearing
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience