Intensity-related performances are modified by long-term hearing aid use: a functional plasticity?

Assessment of auditory plasticity using psychoacoustic and electrophysiological measurements

“…HA-fitted listeners are indeed accustomed to hearing sounds as louder than before their HA fitting, but still in an intensity range that is bearable to them. The results from both tasks are in line with the concept of 'auditory acclimatization' as defined by Arlinger et al (27) and showed that auditory performance may improve significantly with everyday HA use (28).…”

The auditory acclimatization effect in sensorineural hearing-impaired listeners: Evidence for functional plasticity

“…A certain practice eVect cannot be ruled out. In a previous study using exactly the same DLI task, we had observed that long-term HA users tended to have better performances than non-HA users (Philibert et al, 2002). It is possible that the use of pure tones to measure DLI performance made the task more diYcult for the present SNHI listeners and that the practice eVects were therefore stronger than with complex tones.…”

Acoustic stimulation treatments against tinnitus could be most effective when tinnitus pitch is within the stimulated frequency range

“…Computational modeling indicates that such a decrease in response gain could also reduce tinnitus-related hyperactivity . Changes reminiscent of decreased response gain have been observed in humans, where long-term exposure to low-level noise (Formby et al, 2003), longterm hearing aid use (Olsen et al, 1999;Philibert et al, 2002), and exposure to an enriched acoustic environment designed to compensate for the decrease in auditory input after hearing loss (Noreña and Chery-Croze, 2007) decreased the perceived loudness of sounds. Further support for physiological changes in the auditory system in dependence upon the level of sensory input comes from the finding that unilateral earplug-induced sensory deprivation lowers the acoustic reflex threshold in the plugged ear (Munro and Blount, 2009).…”