gms | German Medical Science

GMS Current Posters in Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery (DGHNOKHC)

ISSN 1865-1038

Application of an fNIRS-based evaluation of the activity in the auditory cortex before and after cochlear implantation in infants

Poster Bildgebende Verfahren / Ultraschall

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  • corresponding author Maria Höfer - Departement of Otolaryngology, Medical School Hanover, Hannover
  • Sabine Haumann - Departement of Otolaryngology, Medical School Hanover, Hannover
  • Thomas Lenarz - Departement of Otolaryngology, Medical School Hanover, Hannover

GMS Curr Posters Otorhinolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2014;10:Doc141

doi: 10.3205/cpo000903, urn:nbn:de:0183-cpo0009036

Published: May 19, 2014

© 2014 Höfer et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Outline

Abstract

The stimulation of the auditory cortex (AC) is of outmost importance for the development of language and communication skills. Hence, in patients with a cochlear implant (CI), especially in young children and infants (prelingual deafness), it is essential to check the activation of the AC. This can either be done by indirect measures like a hearing test or by direct measures like electroencephalography (EEG). When it comes to infants and young children the verification of activation in the AC is rather difficult. To measure EEG they have to keep very quiet or they need to be narcotized. Other objective measures like telemetric evoked compound action potential recordings assess auditory nerve function, but not AC activity. With subjective measures like a hearing test only the child’s behavior and its reaction to a sound can be observed. Accordingly, a reliable method for the verification of AC activation in infants is needed. The main goal of this project is to establish a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based evaluation of activity in the AC before and after the implantation of a CI in infants. To acquire this aim the activity in the AC measured with fNIRS will be related to specific neural, audiometric and behavioral measures. Thereby, this study will help to get a better understanding of the pre- and postoperative factors affecting the individual outcome with a CI. Besides a working stimulation of the auditory nerve and the AC, there are also other factors that seem to impact the outcome of a CI, like the degree of cross-modal reorganization in the auditory cortex (Sandmann et al., 2012).Therefore, another goal is to get new insides into plasticity using a combination of EEG and fNIRS.

Unterstützt durch: This work was supported by the DFG Cluster of Excellence EXC 1077/1 “Hearing4all”.

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