Features of beta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling in cochlear implant users derived from EEG

Songjian Wang; Chunlin Li; Yi Liu; Mengyue Wang; Meng Lin; Liu Yang; Younuo Chen; Yuan Wang; Xinxing Fu; Xu Zhang; Shuo Wang

doi:10.1016/j.heares.2022.108668

Features of beta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling in cochlear implant users derived from EEG

Hear Res. 2023 Feb:428:108668. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2022.108668. Epub 2022 Dec 14.

Authors

Songjian Wang¹, Chunlin Li², Yi Liu¹, Mengyue Wang², Meng Lin², Liu Yang¹, Younuo Chen¹, Yuan Wang¹, Xinxing Fu¹, Xu Zhang², Shuo Wang³

Affiliations

¹ Beijing Institute of Otolaryngology, Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Key Laboratory of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery (Capital Medical University), Ministry of Education, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
² School of Biomedical Engineering, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China, Beijing Key Laboratory of Fundamental Research on Biomechanics in Clinical Application, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
³ Beijing Institute of Otolaryngology, Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Key Laboratory of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery (Capital Medical University), Ministry of Education, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China. Electronic address: shannonwsh@aliyun.com.

PMID: 36543037
DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2022.108668

Abstract

Cochlear implants (CIs) allow patients with severe to profound hearing loss to gain or regain their sense of hearing. However, the objective assessment of auditory rehabilitation in CI users remains a challenge. In particular, the utility of phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) for evaluating postoperative rehabilitation of CI users remains unknown. In the present study, we conducted an oddball paradigm with stimuli varying in sample speech syllables and collected electroencephalography (EEG) signals for 10 CI users at the time the implant was activated and 180 days after activation. Twelve normal-hearing subjects served as controls. We explored the oscillatory properties of the neural response to syllable incongruence and the cross-frequency coupling between multiple frequencies in CI users. We found that beta-gamma coupling appeared to be enhanced in CI users compared with normal controls and this difference gradually disappeared with increasing implantation time. The present results suggest that predictively encoded auditory pathways are gradually restored in CI users. In addition, the PAC feature in unilateral CI users was found to be lateralized in the auditory cortex, which was consistent with previous studies of auditory-evoked cortical activity. Therefore, PAC may be a reference biomarker for the rehabilitation of speech discrimination in CI users.

Keywords: Auditory; Biomarker; Cochlear implant; Electroencephalography; Phase-amplitude coupling.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cochlear Implantation* / methods
Cochlear Implants*
Electroencephalography
Evoked Potentials, Auditory / physiology
Hearing
Humans
Speech Perception* / physiology