Can we improve speech perception by cochlear implant patients? Seminar

Cochlear implants (CIs) have restored hearing to more than half a million deaf people worldwide. Although many patients understand speech well in quiet, even the most successful struggle in noisy situations, and pitch perception remains poor. I will review the various modifications to CI design, methods of delivering current to the auditory nerve, and signal-processing strategies that have been proposed as ways of improving hearing by CI patients. I will conclude that, to date, no one-size-fits all solution has been shown to provide a universal benefit, but that a new speech-processing strategy has shown promising results. I will also argue that the success or failure of any new method is likely to depend on the individual patient’s pattern of neural survival and/or on the placement of their CI electrodes. I will describe new experiments that sheds light on methods for measuring this “electrode neural interface”, and on how programming methods that disable “bad” electrodes may or may not improve speech perception.