Research Lab

Cochlear implants and neuroprosthetics

Over 1 million severely deaf patients have already had hearing restored through the use of cochlear implant devices. While these devices are a great help for patients who would otherwise be cut off from a world in which spoken communication remains central, these devices are far from perfect. We are working actively to develop better coding strategies for these devices that will hopefully result in better patient outcomes.

Pitch perception

Normally hearing people are remarkably good at detecting even only very small changes in the pitch of complex sounds. Without this ability we would be unable to hear musical melodies, discriminate sounds of tonal languages, or segregate different voices in a complex auditory scene. Much remains unknown about how the brain generates the this fundamental perceptual quality of “tone height” or “pitch”. Improving our understanding of this may be crucial if we are to improve neuroprosthetic devices.

Binaural hearing

Our auditory pathway is enormously sophisticated in how it combines the sound information from both ears to generate panoramic, spatial perceptions of sound. Sadly, deaf patients who rely on cochlear implants tend to have a much reduced ability to use binaural cues. We believe that it is possible to improve their abilities through better encoding technologies and we actively research how this might be achieved.

1. Sarah Buchholz, Susan Arndt, Jan W. H. Schnupp,  Nicole Rosskothen-Kuhl, (2026) Interactions of Interaural Time and Level Differences in Spatial Hearing with Cochlear Implants.  Advanced Science. e00918
2. Jan W Schnupp,  Sarah Buchholz,  Alexa N Buck, Henrike K Budig, Lakshay Khurana,  Nicole Rosskothen-Kuhl (2025) Pulse Timing Dominates Binaural Hearing with Cochlear Implants. PNAS 122 (16) e2416697122.
3. Fei Peng, Nicol S. Harper, Ambika Prasad Mishra, Ryszard Auksztulewicz, Jan W.H. Schnupp. (2024) Dissociable roles of the auditory midbrain and cortex in processing the statistical features of natural sound textures. J Neurosci  e1115232023;
4. Alexa N Buck, Sarah Buchholz, Jan W Schnupp, Nicole Rosskothen-Kuhl. (2023) Interaural time difference sensitivity under binaural cochlear implant stimulation even at high pulse rates up to 900 pps. Scientific Reports 13:3785
5. Drew Cappotto, HiJee Kang, Kongyan Li, Lucia Melloni, Jan Schnupp*, Ryszard Auksztulewicz*. (2022) Simultaneous Mnemonic and Predictive Representations in the Auditory Cortex, Current Biology (* co-corresponding authors)
6. Rosskothen-Kuhl, N., Buck, A. N., Li, K., & Schnupp, J. W.  (2021) Microsecond Interaural Time Difference Discrimination Restored by Cochlear Implants After Neonatal Deafness, ELife, 498105
7. D Cappotto, R Auksztulewicz, HJ Kang, D Poeppel, L Melloni, J Schnupp. (2021) Decoding the Content of Auditory Sensory Memory Across Species. Cerebral Cortex
8. Rabinowitz, N. C.; Willmore, B. D. B.; King, A. J. and Schnupp, J. W. H. (2013). Constructing noise-invariant representations of sound in the auditory pathway, PLoS Biol. 11 : e1001710
9. Bizley, J. K.; Walker, K. M. M.; Nodal, F. R.; King, A. J. and Schnupp, J. W. H. (2013). Auditory cortex represents both pitch judgments and the corresponding acoustic cues, Curr. Biol. 23 : 620-5
10. Schnupp, J. W.; Mrsic-Flogel, T. D. and King, A. J. (2001). Linear processing of spatial cues in primary auditory cortex, Nat 414 : 200-4