The effect of noise on the cortical activity patterns of speech processing in adults with single-sided deafness

Ji-Hye Han; Jihyun Lee; Hyo-Jeong Lee

doi:10.3389/fneur.2023.1054105

The effect of noise on the cortical activity patterns of speech processing in adults with single-sided deafness

Front Neurol. 2023 Mar 16:14:1054105. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2023.1054105. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Ji-Hye Han^{1

2}, Jihyun Lee^{1

2}, Hyo-Jeong Lee^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences for Convergence Medicine, Hallym University College of Medicine, Anyang, Republic of Korea.
² Ear and Interaction Center, Doheun Institute for Digital Innovation in Medicine (D.I.D.I.M.), Hallym University Medical Center, Anyang, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Hallym University College of Medicine, Chuncheon, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

The most common complaint in people with single-sided deafness (SSD) is difficulty in understanding speech in a noisy environment. Moreover, the neural mechanism of speech-in-noise (SiN) perception in SSD individuals is still poorly understood. In this study, we measured the cortical activity in SSD participants during a SiN task to compare with a speech-in-quiet (SiQ) task. Dipole source analysis revealed left hemispheric dominance in both left- and right-sided SSD group. Contrary to SiN listening, this hemispheric difference was not found during SiQ listening in either group. In addition, cortical activation in the right-sided SSD individuals was independent of the location of sound whereas activation sites in the left-sided SSD group were altered by the sound location. Examining the neural-behavioral relationship revealed that N1 activation is associated with the duration of deafness and the SiN perception ability of individuals with SSD. Our findings indicate that SiN listening is processed differently in the brains of left and right SSD individuals.

Keywords: auditory cortical activation; hemispheric lateralization; single-sided deafness (SSD); sound localization; speech-in-noise processing.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2022R1A2C1004862, NRF-2020R1I1A1A01070914, and NRF-2020R1A6A3A01099260) and by the Hallym University Research Fund and the Hallym University Medical Center Research Fund.