Cortical reorganization following auditory spatial training in listeners with sensorineural hearing impairment: A high-density electroencephalography study

Abstract

The present study is intervention-based research aimed at remediation of spatial deficits in listeners with sensorineural hearing impairment (SNHI), through the use of virtual acoustic technology. A mixed group design comprising both within (pre-test, post-test control group design) and across the groups (standard group) comparisons were performed. The study included 37 participants, who were divided into three groups. Groups I and II consisted of SNHI listeners, while group III comprised normal hearing (NH) listeners. The study was conducted in three phases. At the pre-training phase, electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings were acquired from all the three groups using spatial deviants presented in P300 paradigm. Following this, group I listeners underwent virtual acoustic space training (VAST), and post-training EEG recordings were obtained. EEG recordings were also acquired from group II listeners in second evaluation without subjecting them to any formal spatial training. Results of unpaired t-tests, grand average waveforms and scalp topographies of offline processed waveforms revealed significant differences between SNHI and NH listeners. Furthermore, spatio-temporal analyses showed the emergence of new scalp maps in post-training phase in trained listeners and no topographic changes in untrained SNHI group, suggestive of benefit derived from VAST right at the fundamental level (cortical) of spatial processing.

Spatial rehabilitation using virtual auditory space training paradigm in individuals with sensorineural hearing impairment

“…The use of the VAST paradigm is proven to be as effective as free-field spatial training using loudspeakers in fine-tuning spatial skills of NH listeners (Nisha and Kumar, 2022 ) and has promising implications on cortical re-organization (Nisha and Kumar, 2019a ). In addition, the use of virtual stimuli identical to those used in the VAST paradigm has been effective in documenting the effects of SNHI on cortical processing (Nisha and Kumar, 2019a , b ), the effects of maturational and aging-related changes across life-span (Nisha et al, 2023 ), and the musical training effects (Nisha et al, 2022 ). The present study aimed to validate the efficacy of the VAST paradigm in resolving spatial perception deficits in SNHI listeners.…”