Assessing Rate limits Using Behavioral and Neural Responses of Interaural-Time-Difference Cues in Fine-Structure and Envelope

TL;DR

This study investigates how pulse rate affects interaural-time-difference cue sensitivity in cochlear implant users, using EEG responses and simulations to understand neural mechanisms behind rate-dependent perception degradation.

Contribution

It introduces protocols to eliminate stimulation artifacts and compares neural responses to fine structure and envelope ITD cues across different stimulus types and frequencies.

Findings

Envelope ITD responses are smaller or absent compared to fine structure ITD responses.

High-frequency stimuli elicit smaller subcortical ASSRs, decreasing with frequency.

Filtered clicks produce larger ASSRs than high-frequency SAM tones.

Abstract

The objective was to determine the effect of pulse rate on the sensitivity to use interaural-time-difference (ITD) cues and to explore the mechanisms behind rate-dependent degradation in ITD perception in bilateral cochlear implant (CI) listeners using CI simulations and electroencephalogram (EEG) measures. To eliminate the impact of CI stimulation artifacts and to develop protocols for the ongoing bilateral CI studies, upper-frequency limits for both behavior and EEG responses were obtained from normal hearing (NH) listeners using sinusoidal-amplitude-modulated (SAM) tones and filtered clicks with changes in either fine structure ITD or envelope ITD. Multiple EEG responses were recorded, including the subcortical auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs) and cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) elicited by stimuli onset, offset, and changes. Results indicated that acoustic change complex (ACC) responses elicited by envelope ITD changes were significantly smaller or absent compared to those elicited by fine structure ITD changes. The ACC morphologies evoked by fine structure ITD changes were similar to onset and offset CAEPs, although smaller than onset CAEPs, with the longest peak latencies for ACC responses and shortest for offset CAEPs. The study found that high-frequency stimuli clearly elicited subcortical ASSRs, but smaller than those evoked by lower carrier frequency SAM tones. The 40-Hz ASSRs decreased with increasing carrier frequencies. Filtered clicks elicited larger ASSRs compared to high-frequency SAM tones, with the order being 40-Hz-ASSR>160-Hz-ASSR>80-Hz-ASSR>320-Hz-ASSR for both stimulus types. Wavelet analysis revealed a clear interaction between detectable transient CAEPs and 40-Hz-ASSRs in the time-frequency domain for SAM tones with a low carrier frequency.