Brain
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Influence of single-sided deafness and cochlear implant on the central auditory pathway

Institution: Department of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, in cooperation with the Department of Nuclear Medicine, Medical Center - University of Freiburg
Applicant: Iva Speck
Funding line:
First and Second Applications
Graphic
Activation of the right-sided auditory center during left-sided acoustic stimulation (level of activation color-coded in red-yellow tones, deactivations in blue-green tones; superimposed on horizontal cross-sectional brain images).
(© Department of Nuclear Medicine, Medical Center - University of Freiburg)

Single-sided deafness reduces speech recognition in background noise, limits localisation of sound sources and can cause exhaustion, frustration, and social isolation.
A cochlear implant (CI; implantable hearing prothesis) can restore binaural hearing and improve audiological parameters. However, the results obtained with CI differ considerably. Reliable predictors of success after CI are essential because of the invasiveness and high costs of CIs. The activity of auditory centers in the brain, measured by means of a special imaging technique (PET), could enable such a prediction. The aim of our study is (1) to improve the general understanding of the central neural changes caused by single-sided deafness and CI using PET imaging and, consequently, (2) to contribute to a prospective factor.