Pulse timing dominates binaural hearing with cochlear implants.

ABSTRACT: Although cochlear implants (CIs) provide valuable auditory information to more than one million profoundly deaf patients, these devices remain inadequate in conveying fine timing cues. Early deaf patients in particular struggle to use interaural time differences (ITDs) for spatial hearing and auditory scene analysis. Why CI patients experience these limitations remains controversial. One possible explanation, which we investigate here, is that the stimulation by clinical CIs is inappropriate, as it encodes temporal features of sounds only in the envelope of electrical pulse trains, not the pulse timing. We have recently demonstrated that early deaf, adult implanted rats fitted with bilateral CIs that deliver carefully timed pulses routinely develop sensitivity to very small ITDs. Here we s

SUBMITTER: Schnupp JWH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12036976 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature