Prosthetic hearing and higher brain function

Abstract

Auditory signals coded by a hearing prosthesis (hearing aid or cochlear implant) are non-physiologic and contain less acoustic information. Higher brain function in patients with sensori-neural hearing loss is reorganized to perceive these degraded signals. Situations under which accurate auditory perception is difficult bring about intervention of visual information processing, and successful auditory perception is achieved by integrating multiple sensory inputs. Conversely, there are situations in which disorders in higher order brain function affect the efficacy of prosthetic hearing. Cases with brain injury and congenital cytomegalovirus infection are presented to demonstrate such situations. Understanding the relationships between hearing impairment, prosthetic hearing and higher brain function is important for appropriate treatment planning and selection of communication mode in hearing-impaired patients.